STUDIES  IN  POETRY  AND 
PHILOSOPHY. 


By  the  same  Author : 

CULTURE    AND    RELIGION, 

IN  SOME  OF  THEIR  RELATIONS. 
BBW  EDITION,   WITH  PREFACE  FBOM  THIRD  EDINBURGH  EDITION. 

In  one  volume,  IGmo,  red  cloth,  gilt  top,  paper  title,  $1.25. 

THE  following  are  some  of  the  opinions  which  the  Publishers  have 
received  from  college  officers  :  — 

From  President  MARX  HOPKINS,  of  Williams  College. 
"  It  is  written  with  true  insight,  and  in  a  charming  spirit.    It  is  just  the 
thing  to  aid  young  men  in  our  colleges,  who  will  read  it  at  the  point  where 
they  need  aid  at  the  present  tune." 

From  Professor  A.  P.  PEABODY,  of  Harvard  University. 
"  Permit  me  to  thank  you  warmly  for  reprinting  a  work  of  such  surpassing 
merit,  and  so  perfectly  adapted  to  the  actual  state  of  things  in  our  seminaries 
of  learning.  Had  the  lectures  been  written  for  our  own  University  they  could 
not  have  been  better  suited  to  the  needs  of  its  students  I  have  seldom  seen 
to  so  great  a  degree  as  in  the  tone  of  thought  and  feeling  in  this  volume  the 
union  of  profound  religious  faith  and  the  highest  intellectual  culture  mutually 
interpenetrating, — culture  wreathing  faith  with  its  beauty;  faith  crowning 
culture  with  its  glory." 

From  Professor  Q.  P.  FISHER,  of  Yale  College. 

"  It  is  one  of  the  best  books  I  have  seen  for  a  long  while.  It  is  truly  a  tract 
for  the  tunes,  and  I  wish  that  all  educated  and  thinking  persons  could  read  it." 

From  President  McCosn,  of  Princeton  College. 

"  The  lectures  on  Culture  and  Religion  are  eminently  fitted  to  interest  and 
to  profit  educated  young  men.  The  Culture  stands  before  us  as  a  statue  of 
pure  white  marble  with  a  beautiful  vein  of  Piety  winding  through  it." 

From  President  HARRIS,  of  Bowdoin  College. 

"  I  have  read  with  great  interest  Shairp's  '  Lectures  on  Culture  and  Relig- 
ion.' The  views  presented  are  timely  and  important,  and  the  republication 
of  the  lectures  in  this  country  meets  an  existing  want.  I  hope  they  will  be 
widely  read  in  our  colleges  and  professional  schools." 

From  J.  B.  ASGELL,  President  Elect  of  the  University  of  Michigan. 
"  The  volume  is  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  discussion  of  a  question  which 
has  not  yet  received  from  the  religious  point  of  view  the  exhaustive  treatment 
it  deserves.  The  aim  and  spirit  of  Mr.  Shairp's  book  are  excellent,  and  his 
lectures  cannot  fail  to  be  both  interesting  and  serviceable  to  young  men.  I 
(hall  take  great  pleasure  in  directing  the  attention  of  my  students  to  it." 


STUDIES   IN  POETRY  AND 

PHILOSOPHY. 


BT 

J.  C.  SHAIRP, 


MEtOIPAL  Or  THE  UNITED  COLLEGE  OF  ST.  SALVATOB  AMD  81. 
ST    ANDREWS 


AUTHOR  OF  "  CULTURE  AHD  RELIGIOS. 


PII  VATES  ET  PHOSBO  DION  A  LOCUTL 


BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD  AND  COMPANY. 

JDrrsc, 
1880. 


(Rtprinttd  from  the  Second  Edinburgh  Edition,} 


RIVERSIDE,  CAMBRIDGB: 

STEREOTYPED   AND  PRINTED   BT 

H.  0.  HOUOHTON  AND  COMPANY. 


ANNEX 
PR 


TO 

TUB  RIGHT  HONORABLE 

SIR  JOHN  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE, 

THE  NEPHEW  OP  COLERIDGE, 

THE  FRIEND  OP  WORDSWORTH 

THE  LIFE-LONG  FRIEND  OP  KEBLE, 

AND  HIS  BIOGRAPHER, 

WHOSE  SERENE   AGE  AND   BEAUTIFUL  CHARACTBB 

ANOTHER  GENERATION  SEES  EMBODIED 
THE  BEST  WISDOM  OF  HIS  POET  FRIENDS. 


PEEFACE  TO   SECOND  EDITION. 

THE  Essays  on  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and 
Keble,  were,  as  stated  in  the  former  Preface, 
intended  to  be  in  some  sort  thank-offerings,  — 
single  stones  contributed  to  their  memorial  cairns. 
Another  name  I  feel  should  have  followed,  or 
rather  have  preceded  these.  Of  Walter  Scott 
and  his  poetry,  the  first  poetry  I  knew,  it  was 
my  wish  to  have  said  something  in  another  essay, 
and  to  have  added  it  to  this  series,  or  perhaps  put 
it  in  the  first,  which  would  have  been  its  proper 
place.  But  before  this  was  done,  his  Centenary 
had  come,  during  which  so  much  was  spoken,  and 
well  spoken,  on  the  subject,  that  this  does  not 
seem  the  time  for  saying  more.  But  if,  adopting 
Wordsworth's  lines,  we  say  — 

"  Blessings  be  with  them  — and  eternal  praise, 
Who  gave  us  nobler  loves,  and  nobler  cares  — 
The  Poets,  who  on  earth  have  made  us  heirs 
Of  truth  and  pure  delight  by  heavenly  lays !  " 

to  Walter  Scott  will  fall  a  large  share  in  that 
benediction. 

These  Essays  are  in  no  sense  criticisms  of  the 
poets  they  deal  with,  at  least  as  that  word  is 
generally  understood.  To  take  the  measure  of 


viii  PREFA  CE. 

these  great  and  good  men,  and  assign  them,  as 
the  phrase  goes,  their  place  in  literature,  I  would 
not  try  if,  I  could,  and  I  could  not  if  I  would. 
Such  attempts  seem  to  me  to  be  generally  more 
pretentious  than  solid.  Enough  will  have  been 
done,  if,  by  pointing  to  some  of  the  sources  of 
delight  I  found  in  them,  others  may  be  induced 
to  study  them  and  find  the  same. 

A  hope  was  expressed  that  all  the  four  Essays, 
distinct  though  they  are  in  subject,  might  yet  be 
found  pervaded  by  a  unity  of  thought  and  pur- 
pose. Of  the  reviewers  who  have  noticed  the 
Essays  —  and  all  whom  I  have  read  have  done  so 
very  kindly —  some  have  perceived  no  such  unity, 
others  have  not  failed  to  find  it.  One  reviewer 
has  so  well  described  this  thread  of  connection, 
that  I  cannot  do  better  than  give  his  words  :  — 

"  His  subjects  —  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Keble, 
and  the  Moving  Force  of  the  Moral  Life  —  are 
all,  and  not  slightly,  connected.  All  four  sub- 
jects may  be  said  to  be  concerned  with  the  rela- 
tion of  the  divine  life  to  that  of  man:  Words- 
worth as  the  prophet  of  Nature,  as  the  poet  who 
interpreted  the  relations  between  the  elemental 
powers  of  creation  and  the  moral  life  of  man ; 
Coleridge  as  the  thinker,  who  tried  to  find,  and 
partially  found,  a  philosophy  of  the  supersensual 
life  ;  Keble  as  the  singer,  who  applied  both  these 
great  worlds  of  thought  so  far  as  they  fitted  into 
the  limitations  of  his  own  ....  ecclesiastical 


PREFACE.  il 

system ;  and,  finally,  the  subject  of  Mr.  Shairp's 
last  essay  —  the  great  moving  force  which  helps 
man  to  become  what  he  perceives  that  he  ought 
to  be  — is  one  almost  inevitably  suggested  by  the 
lives  of  the  three  men  who,  from  their  different 
points  of  view,  had  all  been  chiefly  concerned  to 
discover  new  links  between  the  life  above  and  the 
life  beneath." 

The  reviewer  in  the  sequel  expresses  a  doubt 
whether  I  have  enough  insisted  on  "  the  affinity 
of  Wordsworth's  poetry  for  the  great  elemental 
forces  both  of  nature  and  of  humanity"  —  "the 
power  which  the  poet  displays  of  giving  a  strange 
elemental  vastness  to  the  dominant  thread  of 
character  in  either  the  human  or  the  natural  sub- 
ject on  which  he  happens  to  be  dwelling,  so  that 
his  poem  yields  up  not  a  particular  man  or  a 
particular  place,  so  much  as  the  same  element 
which,  while  belonging  to  either,  stretches  away 
into  the  infinite." 

Likely  enough  I  have  not  dwelt  on  this  with 
sufficient  emphasis,  though  I  certainly  have  always 
felt  it.  But  where  there  is  so  much  room  for 
thought,  it  is  not  easy  in  a  short  essay  to  bring 
out  every  aspect  of  the  truth  with  the  promi- 
nence it  deserves.  I  am  therefore  grateful  to 
the  reviewer  for  supplying  in  some  measure  my 
deficiency. 

The  same  writer  then  goes  on  to  object  to  my 
defense  of  Wordsworth  'against  being  a  merely 


X  PREFACE. 

"  subjective  "  poet,  as  it  is  called  —  one  who  draws 
no  pictures  of  human  character  different  from  his 
own.  Here  again,  though  at  the  risk  of  quoting 
too  largely,  I  must  give  the  reviewer's  own  words. 
"  If  the  terrible  word  '  subjective '  means  that 
poetry  so  described  takes  no  note  of  external  lif  e 
and  nature,  it  has,  of  course,  no  application  to 
Wordsworth.  But  if  it  means  that  the  individ- 
ual imagination  of  the  poet  so  overbalances  the 
external  features  of  his  object  that  the  point  of 
departure  seems  in  the  end  to  have  dwindled  into 
insignificance  in  comparison  with  the  grandeur 
of  the  forces  which  it  has  called  up  before  him, 
we  should  differ  with  Mr.  Shairp.  Wordsworth 
takes  a  scene  or  character,  and  getting  it  under 
the  magnifying-glass  of  his  meditative  genius,  he 
follows  out  the  most  striking  train  of  associations 
it  suggests  to  him,  till  he  describes,  not  his  sub- 
ject, but  what  his  subject  might  have  been,  if 
these  special  influences  had  swept  through  it  as 
pure  and  unalloyed  as  they  swept  over  the  heart 
of  the  poet  who  muses  thereon." 

With  much  in  this  account  of  the  matter  I 
should  not  disagree.  To  one  part  of  it  only  I 
demur.  However  great  the  flood  of  meditative 
light  which  Wordsworth  pours  around  the  object 
lie  describes,  the  object  itself  and  its  external 
features  are  not  lost  or  obliterated  before  it.  No 
doubt  when  he  describes  a  man,  he  shows  us 
much  more  in  him  and  his  character  than  the 


PREFACE.  yd 

man  was  aware  of  in  himself.  He  paints  from 
the  side  of  the  soul  rather  than  that  of  the  body, 
but  the  meditative  associations  called  up  are  uni- 
versal and  catholic,  not  individual  or  fanciful 
ones.  And  however  powerful  these  are,  the  ex- 
ternal features  given  remain  and  agree  with  the 
meditations  that  rise  out  of  them.  They  answer, 
each  to  the  other.  A  painter  could  from  Words- 
worth's description  paint  the  Cumberland  Beg- 
gar, Michael,  Peter  Bell,  and  each  would  be  a 
clear  individual  portrait,  differing  from  the  others 
not  only  in  surroundings,  but  in  every  feature, 
and  in  the  whole  expression  of  countenance.  The 
subjectivity,  in  short,  which  I  denied  to  Words- 
worth's characters,  was  that  which  belongs  to  so 
many  of  Byron's  —  his  Giaour,  Corsair,  Lara, 
Alp  the  Renegade,  which  are  each  so  many 
pieces  of  himself,  shadows  of  his  own  personality, 
colored  by  his  own  peculiar  temperament  and 
destiny.  Any  painter  who  tried  to  render  these, 
vary  their  outward  form  and  drapery  as  he  might, 
would  still  paint  but  one  expression  —  the  same 
misanthropic  scowl  would  sit  on  every  brow.  It 
was  the  absence  of  this  kind  of  subjectivity  — 
this  projecting  of  his  own  mere  individuality  into 
his  human  characters  —  that  I  claimed  for  Words- 
worth. Probably  enough,  this  may  have  been 
done  too  unconditionally  ;  the  limits  of  his  power 
pf  representation  may  not  have  been  carefully 
enough  defined.  What  I  meant  was,  that  within 


adi  PREFACE. 

certain  limits  he  truly  renders  other  characters 
than  his  own;  that  his  meditations  about  them 
do  not  so  far  hide  their  distinctive  features  but 
that  you  would  know  them  if  you  met  them  on 
the  highway. 

Further  to  enter  into  these  matters,  and  to 
define  the  limits  of  Wordsworth's  power  in  this 
direction  —  for  limits  very  definite  it  has  —  would 
require  more  than  a  Preface.  His  characters  are 
meditative  representations,  not  dramatic  exhibi- 
tions of  men.  For  these  last  no  poet  ever  had 
less  gift. 

The  four  Essays  have  all  been  carefully  revised, 
and  here  and  there  retouched.  In  re-reading  the 
Essay  on  Coleridge,  I  feel  that  in  what  I  said  but 
scant  justice  has  been  done  to  his  poetry.  But 
to  reopen  this  subject  would  be  to  rewrite  the 
essay.  That  I  have  made  too  little  of  his  poetry 
may  have  arisen  from  this,  that  my  chief  intention 
at  the  time  I  wrote  was  to  bring  out  the  contents 
and  tendency  of  Coleridge's  philosophic  specula- 
tions. 

The  Essay  on  Keble  has  received  larger  addi- 
tions than  any  of  the  others.  Indeed,  it  would 
have  been  easy  to  have  added  much  more,  for 
hardly  a  year  passes  but  brings  to  light  some- 
thing which  gives  new  meaning  to  the  character  of 
Keble  and  "  The  Christian  Year."  But  if  much 
enlarged,  what  was  meant  as  an  essay  would  have 
become  a  book. 

ST.  ANDBEW'S,  December  7,  1871. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION. 

THE  contents  of  this  volume,  -written  during 
leisure  weeks  of  recent  summers,  originally  ap- 
peared in  the  "North  British  Review."  They 
were  put  together  not  hastily  at  first,  and  have 
since  been  revised,  in  some  places  retrenched,  in 
more  enlarged.  This  is  true  of  all  the  papers, 
except  the  third,  which  stands  now  much  as  it 
did  at  first.  Though  each  of  the  four  Essays  has 
a  distinct  subject  of  its  own,  it  is  hoped  that  they 
will  be  found  to  have  a  unity  both  of  thought  and 
purpose.  The  first  three  were  written  from  a 
desire  to  acknowledge,  as  far  as  possible,  a  debt 
of  gratitude  long  owed  to  three  eminent  teachers 
of  the  last  age.  The  only  way  in  which  that 
acknowledgment  could  now  be  rendered,  was  by 
trying  to  hand  on  some  knowledge  of  the  men 
and  of  the  work  they  did  to  a  few  at  least  of  the 
younger  generation.  Each  of  these  three  papers 
has  been  introduced  by  a  short  biography,  in  the 
hope  that  the  concrete  facts  might  throw  light  on 
the  abstract  thoughts,  and  add  to  them  a  human 
interest. 

The  thought  of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  is 


nv  PREFACE   TO   THE  FIRST  EDITION. 

of  such  worth,  that  too  much  cannot  be  done  to 
commend  it  to  those  unacquainted  with  it.  They 
deserve  to  be  known  for  this,  if  for  nothing  else, 
that  they  two  were  the  men  of  most  original 
genius  who  have  been  born  into  England  for 
a  century  and  more.  But  original  genius  has 
sometimes  done  questionable  work,  for  which  per- 
haps small  thanks  are  due.  Theirs,  however, 
was  not  only  original,  it  was  beneficent  genius. 
To  a  sense-bound  age,  rejoicing  in  a  mechanical 
philosophy,  they  came  speaking  from  the  soul  to 
the  soul.  In  time  they  awakened  a  response. 
Younger  men,  one  by  one,  turned  towards  them, 
and  found  in  their  teaching  that  which  at  once 
called  out  and  satisfied  their  aspirations  as  no 
other  writings  of  the  time  did.  Whatever  is  best, 
deepest,  most  spiritual  in  the  thinking  and  feeling 
of  the  last  thirty  years,  is  either  their  product  or 
akin  to  it.  But  now  again  the  recoil  has  come, 
and  we  are  once  more  in  the  midst  of  a  way  of 
thinking  which  excludes  the  spiritual.  As  against 
this  compacted  system  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge 
have  certainly  no  complete  system,  no  spiritual 
theory  of  life  to  furnish,  but  they  supply  a  body 
of  thought  which,  though  unsystematized,  is  the 
best  counteractive  to  be  found  in  English  litera- 
ture, till  the  full  spiritual  theory  gets  born. 

There  is  another  aspect  in  which  the  mental 
experience  of  these  men  is  instructive.  This  is 
proclaimed  on  all  hands  to  be  an  age  of  disin- 


PREFACE  TO   THE  FIRST  EDITION.  rr 

tegration,  when  all  old  things  must  either  be 
reconstructed  or  disappear.  An  uneasy,  restless 
searching  after  something  larger  and  more  satis- 
fying, is  no  doubt  visible  on  the  surface  both  of 
books  and  of  society.  In  this  mood  of  men's 
minds,  is  there  not  something  to  be  learnt  from 
the  experience  of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  ? 
Here  were  two  men  of  amplest  power,  born  into 
an  age  fuller  of  anarchic  change  than  our  own. 
They  threw  themselves  fearlessly  on  their  time, 
broke  with  old  faiths  and  institutions,  in  search 
of  truth  set  their  faces  to  the  wilderness,  and 
after  sojourning  for  a  season  there,  came  out  on 
the  other  side,  and  found  peace.  They  have  been 
branded  for  this  as  mere  timid  reactionaries.  But 
this  I  believe  to  be  no  true  account  of  them.  If 
they  returned  in  some  sense  to  their  first  faiths, 
they  did  so  not  in  blind  conservatism,  not  as 
grasping  at  mere  tradition  in  despair  of  truth, 
but  as  having,  after  long  soul-travail,  discovered 
a  meaning  in  old  truths  they  had  not  divined  be- 
fore. After  wandering  many  ways  of  thought, 
and  having  learnt  in  their  wanderings  to  know 
themselves,  they  came  back  and  found  in  Chris- 
tian truth  that  which  alone  met  their  need. 
They  held  it  no  longer  by  hearsay  from  with- 
out, but  learned  it  anew  from  within,  apprehend- 
ing it  not  in  oldness  of  the  letter,  but  in  newness 
of  the  spirit.  The  spiritual  principles,  which  as 
thinkers  they  held,  found  their  complement  in 


xvi  PREFACE  TO    THE  FIRST  EDITION. 

evangelical  religion,  and  gave  to  this  last  increased 
depth  and  expansion.  This  experience  of  theirs 
has  not  lost  its  import  for  our  own  day. 

Keble,  the  subject  of  the  third  essay,  was  not 
in  mental  endowments  at  all  the  equal  of  Words- 
worth and  Coleridge.  But  he  had  gifts  of  his 
own  as  singular  and  as  interesting  as  theirs.  The 
devoutness  and  saintly  purity,  embalmed  in  his 
poetry,  are  as  rare  among  men  as  their  genius. 
Then  he  represents  the  most  winning,  to  wit,  the 
poetical  and  devotional,  side  of  that  great  move- 
ment which  has  in  so  many  ways  changed  the 
religious,  the  ecclesiastical,  and  the  aesthetical 
aspects  of  English  life.  Many,  no  doubt,  will 
think  this  small  praise  to  him.  But  without 
entering  on  this  subject,  which  has  many  sides, 
every  religious  heart  must  acknowledge  not  only 
the  devout  depth  but  the  catholic  sentiment  of 
"  The  Christian  Year." 

His  strain,  overheard  among  louder-voiced  poets, 
is  like  that  of  his  favorite  red-breast  among  the 
other  song-birds,  and  has  added  to  English  poe- 
try the  note  in  which  it  was  most  wanting. 

The  last  essay  is  different  from  the  other  three. 
It  does  not  centre  round  one  man  and  his  teach- 
ing, but  deals  with  an  abstract  subject.  But  the 
thoughts  it  contains  are,  I  believe,  in  harmony 
with  the  views  set  forth  in  the  first  three  essays, 
—  are  indeed,  as  it  were,  but  a  prolongation  of 
these  views.  In  this  country  the  ground  prin- 


PREFACE  TO   THE  FIRST  EDITION.          xvii 

ciples  of  morality  and  religion  have  generally  been 
carefully  kept  apart.  The  moralist  and  the  relig- 
ious teacher  have  each  warned  the  other  off  his 
own  ground,  and  resented  any  attempt  to  com- 
bine the  two  departments  as  an  interference. 
Both  have  suffered  from  this  unnatural  estrange- 
ment. This  fourth  essay  is  an  attempt  to  find 
the  common  ground  on  which  these  two  subjects 
meet.  It  is  certain  that,  when  seen  in  their  close 
and  vital  bearing  on  each  other,  moral  thought 
will  give  substance  and  steadfastness  to  religion, 
and  religion  will  give  to  morality  a  transcendent 
sanction  and  spiritual  energy. 

This  volume  is  published  chiefly  in  the  hope 
that  it  may  reach  some  of  the  thoughtful  young. 
Older  persons  do  not  much  affect  books  of  this 
kind.  It  is  otherwise  with  those  in  whom  thought 
is  just  awakening.  If  what  I  have  written  should 
lead  any  of  these  to  acquaint  themselves  with  the 
men  here  described,  and  to  assimilate  their  thought, 
they  will,  I  am  sure,  be  the  better  for  it,  and  the 
happier. 

ST.  ANDREW'S,  March,  1868. 


CONTENTS. 


WORDSWORTH 1 

COLERIDGE      . •  • 

KEBLE 204 

THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER 269 


WORDSWORTH. 


i 

THE  deep  stirring  of  men's  minds  with  which  the 
last  century  closed,  and  the  present  century  set  in, 
expressed  itself  in  many  ways  ;  in  no  way  more  con- 
spicuously than  in  the  prodigality  of  poetic  genius  which 
it  poured  forth.  What  gave  the  impulse  to  the  broader, 
profounder,  more  living  spirit,  which  then  entered  into 
all  regions  of  thought,  who  shall  determine?  To  re- 
count the  literary  commonplaces  on  the  subject,  to  refer 
that  great  movement  of  mind  to  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, or  to  the  causes  of  that  Revolution,  is  easy ;  but 
such  vague  talk  does  not  really  increase  our  knowl- 
edge. Perhaps  it  may  be  for  the  present  enough  to 
say,  that  the  portentous  political  outbreak  in  France 
was  itself  but  one  manifestation  of  the  new  and  changed 
spirit  which,  throughout  Europe,  then  penetrated  every 
department  of  human  thought  and  action.  Whatever 
the  causes,  the  fact  is  plain,  that  with  the  opening  of 
this  century  there  was  in  all  civilized  lands  a  turning 
up  of  the  subsoil  of  human  nature,  a  laying  bare  of 
the  intenser  seats  of  action,  thought,  and  emotion,  such 
as  the  world  had  seldom,  if  ever  before,  known.  That 
time  was,  what  it  has  been  called,  "  the  new  birth  of 
imagination." 

The  new  spirit  reached  all  forms  of  literature,  and 
changed  them.  In  this  country  it  told  more  immedi- 
ately on  poetry  than  on  any  other  kind  of  literature, 
1 


2  WORDSWORTH: 

and  recast  it  into  manifold  and  more  original  forms. 
The  breadth  and  volume  of  that  poetic  outburst  can 
only  be  fully  estimated  by  looking  back  to  the  narrow 
and  artificial  channels  in  which  English  poetry  had  run 
since  the  days  of  Milton.  In  the  hands  of  Dryden 
and  Pope,  that  which  was  a  natural,  free-wandering 
river,  became  a  straight-cut,  uniform  canal.  Or,  with- 
out figure,  poetry  was  withdrawn  from  country  life, 
made  to  live  exclusively  in  town,  and  affect  the  fashion. 
Forced  to  appear  in  courtly  costume,  it  dealt  with  the 
artificial  manners  and  outside  aspects  of  men,  and  lost 
sight  of  the  one  human  heart,  which  is  the  proper 
haunt  and  main  region  of  song.  Of  nature  it  repro- 
duced only  so  much  as  may  be  seen  in  the  dressed 
walks  and  gay  parterres  of  a  suburban  villa  on  the 
Thames.  As  with  the  subjects,  so  with  the  style.  Al- 
ways there  was  neatness  of  language,  and  correctness, 
according  to  a  conventional  standard ;  often  there  wats 
terseness,  epigrammatic  point,  polished  vigor  ;  but  along 
with  these  there  was  monotony,  constraint,  tameness  of 
melody.  Those  who  followed,  —  Collins  and  Gray, 
Goldsmith  and  Thomson,  —  though  with  reviving  nat- 
uralness, and  more  of  melody,  could  not  shake  them- 
selves wholly  free  of  the  tyrant  tradition,  and  throw 
themselves  unreservedly  on  nature.  Burns,  if  in  one 
sense  an  anticipation  of  the  nineteenth  century  poetry, 
is  really,  in  reference  to  his  contemporaries,  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  accident :  he  grew  so  entirely  outside, 
and  independently,  of  the  literary  influences  of  his 
time.  His  poetry  was  a  stream  flowing  apart,  on- 
reached  by  the  main  current  of  literature.  Yet,  though 
little  affected  by  contemporary  poets,  he  was  powerful 
with  those  who  came  after  him.  "Wordsworth  owns 
that  it  was  from  Burns  he  learnt  the  power  of  song 
founded  on  humble  truth.  It  was  Cowper,  however, 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  3 

who  first  of  English  poets  brought  poetry  back  from 
the  town  to  the  country.  His  landscape,  no  doubt, 
was  the  tame  one  of  the  eastern  counties,  the  fens  of 
England ;  there  was  in  it  nothing  of  the  stern  wild  joy 
of  the  mountains.  His  sentiment  moved  among  the 
household  sympathies,  not  the  stormy  passions.  But 
in  Cowper's  power  of  simple  narrative  and  truthful  de- 
scription, in  his  natural  pathos  and  religious  feeling, 
more  truly  than  elsewhere,  may  be  discerned  the  dawn 
of  that  new  poetic  era  with  which  this  century  began. 

When  we  remember  that  during  its  first  thirty  years 
appeared  all  the  great  works  of  Wordsworth,  Scott, 
Byron,  Southey,  Coleridge,  Shelley,  Keats,  not  to  men- 
tion many  a  lesser  name,  we  may  be  quite  sure  that 
posterity  will  look  back  to  it  as  one  of  the  most  wonder- 
ful eras  in  English  literature.  What  other  age  in  this, 
I  had  almost  said  in  any  country  has  been,  within  the 
same  space  of  time,  so  lavish  of  great  poets  ?  In  Eng- 
land, at  any  rate,  if  the  Elizabethan  and  the  succeed- 
ing age  had  each  one  greater  poetic  name,  no  age  can 
show  so  goodly  a  poetic  company.  They  who  began 
life  while  many  of  those  poets  were  still  alive,  and 
who  can  perhaps  recall  the  looks  of  some  of  them,  as 
they  still  sojourned  with  us,  may  not  perhaps  value 
to  the  full  the  boon  which  was  bestowed  on  the  gen- 
eration just  gone.  Only  as  age  after  age  passes,  and 
calls  up  no  such  second  company,  will  men  learn  to 
look  back  to  that  poetic  era  with  the  admiration  that 
is  due.  To  sum  up  in  one  sentence  the  manifold  im- 
port of  all  that  those  poets  achieved,  I  cannot  perhaps 
do  better  than  borrow  the  discriminative  words  of  Mr. 
Palgrave  in  his  "  Golden  Treasury."  They  "  carried 
to  further  perfection  the  later  tendencies  of  the  cen- 
tury preceding,  in  simplicity  of  narrative,  reverence  for 
human  passion  and  character  in  every  sphere,  and  im- 


4  WORDSWORTH- 

passioned  love  of  nature :  whilst  maintaining  on  the 
whole  the  advances  in  art  made  since  the  Restoration, 
they  renewed  the  half-forgotten  melody  and  depth  of 
tone  which  marked  the  best  Elizabethan  writers  ;  lastly, 
to  what  was  thus  inherited  they  added  a  richness  in 
language  and  a  variety  in  metre,  a  force  and  fire  in 
narrative,  a  tenderness  and  bloom  in  feeling,  an  insight 
into  the  finer  passages  of  the  soul,  and  the  inner  mean- 
ings of  the  landscape,  a  larger  and  a  wiser  humanity, 
hitherto  hardly  attained  and  perhaps  unattainable  even 
by  predecessors  of  not  inferior  individual  genius." 

It  is  worth  while  to  look  somewhat  more  closely  at 
the  one  of  that  poetic  brotherhood  who  was  the  eldest 
born,  the  hardiest,  the  most  original  innovator  of  them 
all.  For  a  survey  of  Wordsworth  and  his  poetry  there 
would  seem  to  be  now  the  more  room,  because  his 
popularity,  which  during  his  lifetime  underwent  so  re- 
markable vicissitudes,  has,  during  the  interval  since  his 
death,  receded,  and  seems  now  to  be  at  the  ebb,  with 
all  save  the  few  of  genuine  poetic  instinct. 

It  would  form  a  strange  chapter  in  literary  history 
to  trace  the  alternate  rise  and  fall  in  poetic  reputations. 
To  go  no  further  back  than  the  contemporaries  of 
Wordsworth,  how  various  have  been  their  fortunes  ! 
Some,  as  Byron,  were  received,  almost  on  their  first 
appearance,  with  a  burst  of  applause  which  posterity  is 
not  likely  fully  to  reverberate.  Some,  as  Scott  —  I 
speak  only  of  his  poetry,  —  were  at  first  welcomed  with 
nearly  equal  favor,  afterwards  for  a  time  retired  before 
a  temporary  caprice  of  public  taste,  but  have  since  re- 
sumed what  was  their  earliest,  and  is  likely  to  be  their 
permanent  place.  Others,  as  Campbell,  had  at  once 
the  poetic  niche  assigned  them,  which  they  are  likely 
hereafter  to  fill;  while  others,  as  Shelley  and  Keats, 
received  little  praise  of  men,  till  they  themselves  were 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  5 

beyond  reach  of  it.  Wordsworth  had  a  different  for- 
tune from  any  of  these.  For  more  than  twenty  years 
after  his  earlier  poems  appeared,  he  experienced  not 
simply  neglect,  but  an  amount  of  obloquy  such  as  few 
poets  have  ever  had  to  encounter.  But  sustained  by 
his  own  profound  conviction  that  his  work  was  true  and 
destined  to  endure,  and  by  the  sympathy  of  a  very  few 
discerning  men,  he  calmly  and  cheerfully  bode  his  hour. 
In  time  the  clamor  against  him  spent  itself,  the  reaction 
set  in  between  the  years  1820  and  1830,  reached  its 
culmination  about  the  time  of  his  Oxford  welcome  hi 
1839,  and  may  be  said  to  have  lasted  till  his  death  in 
1850.  Since  then,  in  obedience  to  that  law  which  gives 
living  poets  a  stronger  hold  on  the  minds  of  their  own 
generation  than  any  poet,  even  the  greatest,  of  a  past 
age,  Wordsworth  may  seem  to  have  receded  somewhat 
in  the  world's  estimate.  But  his  influence  is,  in  its  na- 
ture, too  durable  to  be  really  affected  by  these  fashions 
of  the  hour.  It  is  raised  high  above  the  shifting  damps 
and  fogs  of  this  lower  atmosphere,  and  shines  from  the 
poetic  heaven  with  a  benign  and  undying  light.  The 
younger  part  of  the  present  generation,  attracted  by 
newer,  but  certainly  not  greater  luminaries,  may  not 
yet  have  learned  fully  to  recognize  him.  But  there 
are  many  now  in  middle  life,  who  look  back  to  the  time 
of  their  boyhood  or  early  youth,  when  Wordsworth  first 
found  them,  as  a  marked  era  in  their  existence.  They 
can  recall,  it  may  be,  the  very  place  and  the  hour  when, 
as  they  read  this  or  that  poem  of  his,  a  new  light,  as 
from  heaven,  dawned  suddenly  within  them.  The 
scales  of  custom  dropped  from  their  eyes,  and  they 
beheld  all  nature  with  a  splendor  upon  it,  as  of  the 
world's  first  morning.  The  common  sights  and  sounds 
of  earth  became  other  than  they  were.  The  heart 
leapt  up  to  the  white  streaks  of  cloud,  and  looked  on 


6  WORDSWORTH: 

the  early  stars  of  evening  with  a  young  wonder,  never 
felt  till  then.  Man  too,  and  human  life,  cleared  of  the 
highway  dust,  came  home  to  them  more  intimately, 
more  engagingly,  more  solemnly,  than  before.  For 
their  hearts  were  touched  by  the  poet's  creative  finger, 
and  new  springs  of  thought,  tenderer  wells  of  feeling, 
broke  from  beneath  the  surface.  And  though  time  and 
custom  may  have  done  much  to  dim  the  eye,  and 
choke  the  feelings  which  Wordsworth  once  unsealed, 
no  time  can  ever  efface  the  remembrance  of  that  first 
unvailing,  nor  destroy  the  grateful  conviction  that  to 
him  they  owe  a  delicate  and  inward  service,  such  as  no 
other  poet  has  equally  rendered. 

Something  of  this  service  Wordsworth,  I  believe,  is 
fitted  to  render  to  all  men  with  moderately  sensitive 
hearts,  if  they  would  but  read  attentively  a  few  of  his 
best  poems.  But  to  receive  the  full  benefit,  to  draw 
out,  not  random  impressions,  but  the  stored  wisdom  of 
his  capacious  and  meditative  soul,  he,  above  all  modern 
poets,  requires  no  cursory  perusal,  but  a  close  and  con- 
secutive study.  It  was  once  common  to  call  him  mys- 
tical and  unintelligible.  That  language  is  seldom  heard 
now.  But  many,  especially  young  persons,  or  those 
trained  in  other  schools  of  thought,  or  in  no  school  at 
all,  will  still  feel  the  need  of  a  guide  in  the  study  of  his 
poetry.  For  what  is  best  in  him  lies  not  on  the  sur- 
face, but  in  the  depth.  It  is  so  far  hidden  that  it  must 
needs  be  sought  for.  Not  that  his  language  is  obscure : 
what  he  has  to  say  is  expressed  for  the  most  part  in 
words  as  well  ordered,  as  luminous,  as  adequate  as  any 
words  in  which  thought  so  subtle  and  so  deep  has  ever 
clothed  itself.  But  many  of  his  thoughts  are  of  such  a 
nature,  so  near,  yet  so  hidden  from  men's  ordinary  ways 
of  thinking,  that  the  reader,  ere  he  apprehend  them, 
must  needs  himself  go  through  somewhat  of  the  same 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  7 

processes  of  feeling  and  reflection  as  the  poet  himself 
passed  through  in  creating  them.  The  need  of  this  re- 
flective effort  on  the  part  of  the  reader  is  inherent  in 
the  nature  of  many  of  Wordsworth's  subjects,  and  can- 
not be  dispensed  with.  No  doubt  the  effort  is  rendered 
much  lighter  to  us  than  it  was  when  his  poems  first  ap- 
peared ;  so  much  of  what  was  then  new  in  Wordsworth 
has  since  passed  into  the  atmosphere  of  literature,  and 
found  its  way  to  most  educated  minds.  Still,  with  all 
this,  there  remains  a  large  —  perhaps  the  largest  — 
portion  of  Wordsworth's  peculiar  wisdom  unabsorbed, 
nor  likely  to  be  soon  absorbed,  by  this  excitement-crav- 
ing, unmeditative  age.  A  thorough  and  appreciative 
commentary,  which  should  open  avenues  to  the  study 
of  Wordsworth,  and  render  accessible  his  imaginative 
heights  and  his  meditative  depths,  would  be  a  boon  to 
the  younger  part  of  this  generation.  The  opening 
chapter  of  such  a  commentary  would  first  set  forth  the 
facts  and  circumstances  of  the  poet's  life,  would  show 
what  manner  of  man  he  was,  how  and  by  what  influ- 
ences his  mind  was  matured,  from  what  points  of  view 
he  was  led  to  approach  nature  and  human  life,  and  to 
undertake  the  poetic  treatment  of  these.  A  portion 
of  such  a  chapter  I  propose  to  place  now  before  my 
readers,  —  at  least  so  far  as  to  describe  the  facts  of 
Wordsworth's  early  life,  and  the  influences  among 
which  he  lived,  up  to  the  time  when  he  settled  at  Gras- 
mere,  and  addressed  himself  to  poetry  as  the  serious 
business  of  his  life. 

Wordsworth  was  sprung  from  an  old  North-Hum- 
brian  stock,  as  contrasted  with  the  South-Humbrian 
race,  a  circumstance  which  has  stamped  itself  visibly  on 
his  genius.  The  name  of  Wordsworth  had  been  long 
known  hi  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  about  the 
course  of  the  Dove  and  the  Don.  Of  old  they  had 


8  WORDSWORTH: 

been  yeoman,  or  landed  gentry,  for  both  of  these  they 
call  themselves  in  old  charters,  at  Penistone,  near 
Doncaster.  In  this  neighborhood  they  can  be  traced 
back  as  far  as  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  From  York- 
shire the  poet's  grandfather  is  said  to  have  migrated 
westward,  and  to  have  bought  the  small  estate  of  Sock- 
bridge,  near  Penrith.  His  father,  John  "Wordsworth, 
was  an  attorney,  and  having  been  appointed  law-agent 
to  the  then  Earl  of  Lonsdale,  was  set  over  the  western 
portion  of  the  wide  domain  of  Lowther,  and  lived  in 
Cockermouth,  in  a  manor-house  belonging  to  that  noble 
family.  John  Wordsworth  married  Anne  Cookson, 
daughter  of  a  mercer  hi  Penrith,  whose  mother, 
Dorothy,  was  one  of  the  ancient  northern  family  of 
Crackenthorpe,  a  name  of  note,  both  in  logical  and 
theological  lore.  These  facts  may  be  of  little  moment 
in  themselves ;  but  they  serve  to  show  that  in  the  wis- 
dom of  Wordsworth,  as  in  so  many  another  poet,  the 
virtues  of  an  ancient  and  worthy  race  were  condensed, 
and  bloomed  forth  into  genius.  In  that  old  mansion- 
house  at  Cockermouth,  William  was  born  on  the  7th  of 
April,  1770,  the  second  of  four  sons.  There  was  only 
one  daughter  in  the  family,  Dorothy,  who  came  next 
after  the  poet.  Cockermouth,  their  birthplace,  though 
/  "  /  /£  beyond  the  hill  country,  stands  on  the  Derwent,  called 
'•'  by  the  poet,  "  fairest  of  all  rivers,"  and  looks  back  to 
the  Borrowdale  mountains,  among  which  that  river  is 
born.  The  voice  of  that  stream,  he  tells  us,  flowed 
along  his  dreams  while  he  was  a  child.  When  five 
years  old,  he  used  to  spend  the  whole  summer-day  in 
bathing  in  a  mill-race  let  off  the  river,  now  in  the  water, 
now  out  of  it,  now  scouring  the  sandy  fields,  naked  as  a 
savage,  while  the  hot,  thundery  noon  was  bronzing 
distant  Skiddaw ;  and  then  plunging  in  once  more. 
His  mother,  a  wise  and  pious  woman,  told  a  friend 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  POET.  9 

that  William  was  the  only  one  of  her  children  about 
whom  she  felt  anxious,  and  that  he  would  be  "  remark- 
able either  for  good  or  evil."  According  to  the  Scot- 
tish proverb,  he  would  either  "  mak  a  spoon  or  spoil 
a  horn."  This  was  probably  from  what  he  himself 
calls  his  "  stiff,  moody,  and  violent  temper."  Of  this, 
which  made  him  a  wayward  and  headstrong  boy,  all  that 
he  seems  afterwards  to  have  retained  was  that  reso- 
luteness of  character  which  stood  him  in  good  stead 
when  he  became  a  man. 

Of  his  mother,  who  died  when  he  was  eight  years 
old,  the  poet  retained  a  faint  but  tender  recollection. 
At  the  age  of  nine,  William,  along  with  his  elder  brother 
Richard,  left  home  for  school.  It  would  be  hard  to 
conceive  a  school-life  more  fitted  for  a  future  poet  than 
that  in  which  Wordsworth  was  reared  at  Hawkshead. 
This  village  lies  in  the  vale,  and  not  far  from  the  lake, 
of  Esthwaite,  a  district  of  gentler  hill-beauty,  but  in  full 
view,  westward  and  northward,  of  Kirkstone  Pass,  Fair- 
field,  and  Helvellyn.  Hawkshead  school,  as  described 
in  "  The  Prelude,"  must  have  been  a  strange  contrast 
to  the  highly-elaborated  school-systems  of  our  own  day. 
High  pressure  was  then  unknown ;  nature  and  freedom 
had  full  swing.  Bounds  and  locking-up  hours  they  had 
none.  The  boys  lived  in  the  cottages  of  the  village 
dames,  in  a  natural,  friendly  way,  like  their  own  chil- 
dren. Their  playgrounds  were  the  fields,  the  lake,  the 
woods,  and  the  hill-sides,  far  as  their  feet  could  carry 
them.  Their  games  were  crag-climbing  for  ravens' 
nests,  skating  on  Esthwaite  Lake,  setting  springes  for 
woodcocks.  For  this  latter  purpose  they  would  range 
the  woods  late  on  whiter  nights,  unchallenged.  Early 
on  summer  mornings,  before  a  chimney  was  smoking, 
Wordsworth  would  make  the  circuit  of  the  lake. 
There  were  boatings  on  more  distant  Windermere,  and, 


10  WORDSWORTH: 

when  their  scanty  pocket-money  allowed,  long  rides  to 
Furness  Abbey  and  Morecambe  Sands. 

In  "Wordsworth's  fourteenth  year,  when  he  and  his 
brother  were  at  home  for  the  Christmas  holidays,  their 
father,  who  had  never  recovered  heart  after  the  death 
of  his  wife,  followed  her  to  the  grave.  The  old  home 
at  Cockermouth  was  broken  up,  and  the  orphans  were 
but  poorly  provided  for.  Their  father  had  but  little  to 
leave  his  children.  For  large  arrears  were  due  to  him 
by  the  strange,  self-willed  Earl  of  Lonsdale,  whom  De 
Quincey  describes,  and  these  his  lordship  never  chose 
to  make  good.  But  the  boys,  not  the  less,  returned  to 
school,  and  "William  remained  there  till  his  eighteenth 
year,  when  he  left  for  Cambridge. 

From  Hawkshead,  "Wordsworth  took  several  good 
things  with  him.  In  book-learning,  there  was  Latin 
enough  to  enable  him  to  read  the  Roman  poets  with 
pleasure  in  after  years ;  of  mathematics,  more  than 
enough  to  start  him  on  equality  with  the  average  of 
Cambridge  freshmen;  of  Greek,  I  should  suppose  not 
much  —  at  least  we  never  hear  of  it  afterwards.  It 
was  here  that  he  began  that  intimacy  with  the  English 
poets  which  he  afterwards  perfected  ;  Awhile  for  amuse- 
ment he  read  the  fictions  of  Fielding  and  Swift,  of  Cer- 
vantes and  Le  Sage.  But  neither  at  school  nor  in  after 
life  was  he  a  devourer  of  books. 

Of  actual  verse-making,  his  earliest  attempts  date 
from  Hawkshead.  A  long  copy  of  verses,  written  on 
the  second  centenary  of  the  foundation  of  the  school, 
was  much  admired,  but  he  himself  afterwards  pro- 
nounced them  but  a  "  tame  imitation  of  Pope."  Some 
lines  composed  on  his  leaving  school,  with  a  few  of 
which  the  edition  of  his  works  of  1857  opens,  are  more 
noticeable,  as  they,  if  not  afterwards  changed,  contain  a 
hint  of  his  maturer  self.  But  more  important  than  any 


THE  MAN  AND   TEE  POET.  11 

juvenile  poems,  or  any  skill  of  verse-making  acquired 
at  Hawkshead,  were  the  materials  for  after  thought 
there  laid  up,  the  colors  laid  deep  into  the  groundwork 
of  his  being.  In  the  "  Evening  Walk,"  composed 
partly  at  school,  partly  in  college  vacations,  he  notices 
how  the  boughs  and  leaves  of  the  oak  darken  and  come 
out  when  seen  against  the  sunset.  "  I  recollect  dis- 
tinctly," he  says  nearly  fifty  years  afterwards,  "the 
very  spot  where  this  first  struck  me.  It  was  on  the 
way  between  Hawkshead  and  Ambleside,  and  gave  me 
extreme  pleasure.  The  moment  was  important  in  my 
poetical  history ;  for  I  date  from  it  my  consciousness 
of  the  infinite  variety  of  natural  appearances,  which  had 
been  unnoticed  by  the  poets  of  any  age  or  country,  so 
far  as  I  was  acquainted  with  them  ;  and  I  made  a  reso- 
lution to  supply  in  some  degree  the  deficiency.  I  could 
not  have  been  at  that  time  above  fourteen  years  of  age." 
Not  a  bad  resolution  for  fourteen  !  And  he  kept  it.  It 
would  be  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  there  is  not  a 
single  image  in  his  whole  works  which  he  had  not 
observed  with  his  own  eyes.  And  perhaps  no  poet 
since  Homer  has  introduced  into  poetry,  directly  from 
nature,  more  facts  and  images  which  had  not  before 
been  noted  in  books. 

But  more  than  any  book-lore,  more  than  any  skill 
in  verse-making,  or  definite  thoughts  about  poetry,  was 
the  free,  natural  life  he  led  at  Hawkshead.  It  was 
there  that  he  was  smitten  to  the  core  with  that  love 
of  nature  which  became  the  prime  necessity  of  his  be- 
ing ;  not  that  he  was  a  moody  or  peculiar  boy,  nursing 
bis  own  fancies  apart  from  his  companions.  So  far 
from  that,  he  was  foremost  in  all  schoolboy  adventures, 
—  the  sturdiest  oar,  the  hardiest  cragsman  at  the  harry- 
ing of  ravens'  nests.  Weeks  and  months,  he  tells  us, 
passed  in  a  round  of  school  tumult.  No  life  could  have 


12  WORDSWORTH: 

been  every  way  more  unconstrained  and  natural.  But 
school  tumult  though  there  was,  it  was  not  in  a  made 
playground  at  cricket  or  rackets,  but  in  haunts  more 
fitted  to  form  a  poet  —  on  the  lakes  and  the  hill-sides. 
Would  that  some  poets,  who  have  since  been  born,  had 
had  such  a  boyhood,  had  walked,  like  Wordsworth, 
unmolested  in  the  cool  fields,  not  been  stimulated  at 
school  by  the  fever  of  emulation  and  too  early  intellect- 
uality, and  then  hurled  prematurely  against  the  life- 
wrecking  problems  of  existence  !  Whatever  stimulants 
Wordsworth  had  came  from  within,  awakened  only  by 
the  common  sights  and  sounds  of  nature.  All  through 
his  school-tune,  he  says  that  in  pauses  of  the  "  giddy 
bliss"  he  felt  — 

"  Gleams  like  the  flashing  of  a  shield,  the  earth 
And  common  face  of  nature  spake  to  him 
Eememberable  things." 

And  as  time  went  on,  and  common  school  pursuits  lost 
their  novelty,  these  visitations  grew  deeper  and  more1 
frequent.  At  nightfall,  when  a  storm  was  coming  on, 
he  would  stand  in  shelter  of  a  rock,  and  hear  — 

"  Notes  that  are 

The  ghostly  language  of  the  ancient  earth, 
Or  make  their  dim  abode  in  distant  winds." 

At  such  times  he  was  aware  of  a  coming  down  upon 
him  of  the  "  visionary  power."  On  summer  mornings 
he  would  rise,  before  another  human  being  was  astir, 
and  alone,  from  some  jutting  knoll,  watch  the  first 
gleam  of  dawn  kindle  on  the  lake :  — 

"  Oft  in  these  moments  such  a  holy  calm 
Would  overspread  my  soul,  that  bodily  eyes 
Were  utterly  forgotten,  and  what  I  saw 
Appeared  like  something  in  myself,  a  dream, 
A  prospect  of  the  mind." 

Is  not  this  the  germ  of  what  afterwards  became  the 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  13 

"  Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality  ?  "  or  rather,  it  is 
of  hours  like  these  that  that  Ode  is  the  glorified  re- 
membrance. 

In  October,  1787,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  "Words- 
worth passed  from  Hawkshead  School  to  St.  John's 
College,  Cambridge.  College  life,  so  important  to 
those  whose  minds  are  mainly  shaped  by  books  and 
academic  influences,  produced  on  him  but  little  impres- 
sion. On  men  of  strong  inward  bias  the  University 
often  acts  with  a  repulsive  rather  than  a  propelling 
force.  Recoiling  from  the  prescribed  drill,  they  faU 
back  all  the  more  entirely  on  their  native  instincts. 
The  stripling  of  the  hills  had  not  been  trained  for  col- 
lege competitions  ;  he  felt  that  he  was  not  "  for  that 
hour,  and  for  that  place."  The  range  of  scholastic 
studies  seemed  to  him  narrow  and  timid.  The  college 
dons  inspired  him  with  no  reverence,  their  inner  heart 
seemed  trivial ;  they  were  poor  representatives  of  the 
Bacons,  Barrows,  Newtons  of  the  old  time.  As  for 
college  honors,  he  thought  them  dearly  purchased  at 
the  price  of  the  evil  rivalries  and  narrow  standard  of 
excellence,  which  they  fostered  in  the  eager  few  who 
entered  the  lists.  Altogether,  he  had  led  too  free  and 
independent  a  life  to  put  on  the  fetters  which  college 
contests  and  academic  etiquette  exacted.  No  doubt  he 
was  a  self-sufficient,  presumptuous  youth,  so  to  judge 
of  men  and  things  in  so  famous  a  University.  Such  at 
least  he  must  have  appeared  to  college  authorities ; 
very  disappointing  too  he  must  have  been  to  friends  at 
home.  They  had  sent  him  thither,  with  no  little 
trouble,  not  to  set  himself  up  in  opposition  to  authority, 
but  to  work  hard,  and  by  working  to  make  his  liveli- 
hood. And  perhaps  home  friends  and  college  tutors 
were  not  altogether  wrong  in  their  opinion  of  him,  if 
we  are  to  judge  of  men  not  wholly  by  after  results. 


14  WORDSWORTH} 

Wordsworth  at  this  time  may  probably  enough  have 
been  a  headstrong,  disagreeably  independent  lad.  Only 
there  were  latent  in  him  other  qualities  of  a  rarer  kind, 
which  in  time  justified  him  in  taking  his  own  line. 

When  he  arrived  in  Cambridge,  a  northern  villager, 
he  tells  us  that  there  were  other  poor,  simple  school- 
boys from  the  north,  now  Cambridge  men,  ready  to 
welcome  him,  and  introduce  him  to  the  ways  of  the 
place.  So,  leaving  to  others  the  competitive  race,  he 
let  himself,  in  the  company  of  these,  drop  quietly  down 
the  stream  of  the  usual  undergraduate  jollities :  — 

"  If  a  throng  were  near, 
That  way  I  leaned  by  nature;  for  my  heart 
Was  social,  and  loved  idleness  and  joy." 

It  sounds  strange  to  read  in  the  pompous  blank  verse 
of  "The  Prelude,"  how,  while  still  a  freshman,  he 
turned  dandy,  wore  hose  of  silk,  and  powdered  hair. 
And  again,  how  in  a  friend's  room  in  Christ  College, 
once  occupied  by  Milton,  he  toasted  the  memory  of 
the  abstemious  Puritan  till  the  fumes  of  wine  took  his 
brain  —  the  first  and  last  time  that  the  future  water- 
drinker  experienced  that  sensation.  During  the  earlier 
part  of  his  college  course  he  did  just  as  others  did, 
lounged  and  sauntered,  boated  and  rode,  enjoyed  wines 
and  supper-parties,  "  days  of  mirth  and  nights  of  rev- 
elry ; "  yet  kept  clear  of  vicious  excess. 

When  the  first  novelty  of  college  life  was  over,  he 
grew  dissatisfied  with  idleness.  Sometimes,  too,  he  was 
haunted  by  prudent  fears  about  his  future  maintenance. 
He  withdrew  somewhat  from  promiscuous  society,  and 
kept  more  by  himself.  Living  in  quiet,  the  less  he  felt 
of  reverence  for  those  elders  whom  he  saw,  the  more 
his  heart  was  stirred  with  high  thoughts  of  those  whom 
he  could  not  see.  As  he  lay  in  his  bedroom  in  St 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  15 

John's,  he  could  look  into  the  ante-chapel  of  Trinity, 
and  watch  the  moonlight  moving  over  the  countenance 
of  the  great  statue  there  — 

"  Of  Newton,  with  his  prism  and  silent  face, 
The  marble  index  of  a  mind  forever 
Voyaging  through  strange  seas  of  thought,  alone." 

He  read  Chaucer  under  the  hawthorn  by  Tromping- 
ton  Mill,  and  made  intimate  acquaintance  with  Spenser. 
Milton  he  seemed  to  himself  almost  to  see  moving  be- 
fore him,  as,  clad  in  scholar's  gown,  that  young  poet 
had  once  walked  those  same  cloisters  in  the  angelic 
beauty  of  his  youth. 

So  his  time  at  Cambridge  was  not  wholly  lost.  Two 
advantages  at  least  he  gamed,  noble  thoughts  about  the 
great  men  who  of  old  had  tenanted  that  "garden  of 
high  intellects,"  and  free  intercourse  with  his  fellow- 
men  of  the  same  age  and  of  varied  character  —  a  special 
gain  to  one  whose  fife,  both  before  and  afterwards,  was 
passed  so  much  in  retirement. 

During  the  summer  vacations  he  and  his  sister  Doro- 
thy, who  had  been  much  separated  since  childhood,  met 
once  more  under  the  roof  of  their  mother's  kindred  in 
Penrith.  With  her  he  then  had  the  first  of  those  ram- 
bles —  by  the  streams  of  Lowther  and  Emont —  which 
were  afterwards  renewed  with  so  happy  results.  Then, 
too,  he  first  met  Mary  Hutchinson,  his  cousin,  and  hia 
wife  to  be :  — 

"  By  her  exulting  outside  look  of  youth 
And  placid  tender  countenance,  first  endeared." 

It  was  d  iring  his  second  or  third  year  at  Cambridge, 
when  he  had  somewhat  withdrawn  from  society,  and 
lived  more  by  himself,  that  he  first  seriously  formed 
the  purpose  of  being  a  poet,  and  dared  to  hope  that  he 
might  leave  behind  him  something  that  would  live. 


16  WORDSWORTH: 

His  last  long  vacation,  to  reading  men  often  the  sever- 
est labor  of  their  lives,  was  devoted  to  a  walking  tour 
on  the  Continent  along  with  a  college  .friend  from 
Wales.  For  himself  he  had  long  cast  college  studies 
and  their  rewards  behind  him,  but  friends  at  home,  it 
may  readily  be  imagined,  could  not  see  such  foolhardi- 
ness  without  uneasy  forebodings.  What  was  to  become 
of  a  penniless  lad  who  thus  played  ducks  and  drakes 
with  youth's  golden  opportunities  ?  But  he  had  as  yet 
no  misgivings,  he  was  athirst  only  for  nature  and  free- 
dom. So  with  his  friend  Jones,  staff  in  hand,  he 
walked  for  fourteen  weeks  through  France,  Switzer- 
land, and  the  north  of  Italy.  With  four  shillings  each 
daily,  they  paid  then1  way.  They  landed  at  Calais,  on 
the  eve  of  the  day  when  the  king  was  to  swear  to  the 
new  constitution.  All  through  France,  as  they  trudged 
along,  they  saw  a  people  rising  with  jubilee  to  welcome 
in  the  dawn  of,  as  they  believed,  a*  new  era  for  man- 
kind. Nor  were  they  onlookers  only,  but  sympathizers 
in  the  intoxication  of  the  time,  joining  in  village  revels 
and  dances  with  the  frantic  multitude.  But  these 
sights  did  not  detain  them,  for  they  were  bent  rather 
on  seeing  nature  than  man.  Over  the  Alps,  along  the 
Italian  lakes,  they  passed  with  a  kind  of  awful  joy. 
As  they  hurried  down  the  southern  slope  of  the  Alps, 
Wordsworth  tells  us  that  the  woods  "  decaying,  never 
to  be  decayed,"  the  drizzling  crags,  the  cataracts,  and 
the  clouds,  appeared  to  him  no  longer  material  things, 
but  spiritual  entities,  "characters  in  a  dread  Apoca- 
lypse." 

In  January,  1789,  Wordsworth  took  a  common  de- 
gree and  quitted  Cambridge.  The  crisis  of  his  life  lay 
between  this  time  and  his  settling  down  at  Grasmere. 
He  had  resolved  to  be  a  poet,  but  even  poets  must  be 
housed,  clothed,  and  fed ;  and  poetry  has  seldom  done 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  POET.  17 

this  for  any  of  its  devotees,  least  of  all  such  poetry  as 
"Wordsworth  was  minded  to  write.  But  it  was  not  the 
question  of  bread  alone,  but  a  much  wider,  more  com- 
plex one,  which  now  pressed  on  him,  —  the  same  which 
so  many  a  thoughtful  youth,  on  leaving  the  University, 
with  awakened  powers,  but  no  special  turn  for  any  of 
the  professions,  has  had  to  face,  —  the  question,  What 
next?  In  such  cases  the  more  gifted  the  querist,  the 
harder  becomes  the  problem. 

This  mental  trial,  incident  at  all  times  to  early  man- 
hood, how  must  it  have  been  aggravated  to  a  youth 
such  as  Wordsworth,  turned  loose  on  a  world  just 
heaving  with  the  first  throes  of  the  French  Revolution  ! 
He  had  seen  it  while  it  still  wore  its  earliest  auroral 
hues,  when  the  people  were  mad  with  joy,  as  at  the 
dawn  of  a  regenerated  earth.  That  he  should  have 
staked  his  whole  hope  on  it,  looked  for  all  good  things 
from  it,  who  shall  wonder?  Coleridge,  Southey,  almost 
every  high-minded  young  man  of  that  time,  hailed  it 
with  fervor.  Wordsworth  would  not  have  been  the 
man  he  was,  if  he  could  have  stood  proof  against  the 
contagion.  On  leaving  Cambridge  he  had  gone  to 
London.  The  spring  and  early  summer  months  he 
spent  there,  not  mingling  in  society,  for  probably  he 
had  few  acquaintances,  but  wandering  about  the  streets, 
noting  all  sights,  observant  of  men's  faces  and  ways, 
haunting  the  open  book-stalls.  During  these  months 
he  tells  us  that  he  was  preserved  from  the  cynicism 
and  contempt  for  human  nature  which  the  deformities 
of  crowded  life  often  breed,  by  the  'remembrance  of 
the  kind  of  men  he  had  first  lived  amongst,  in  them- 
selves a  manly,  simple,  uncontaminated  race,  and  in- 
vested with  added  interest  and  dignity  by  living  in  the 
same  hereditary  fields  in  which  their  forefathers  had 
lived  time  out  of  mind,  and  by  moving  about  among 
2 


18  WORDSWORTH: 

the  grand  accompaniments  of  mountain  storms  and 
sunshine.  The  good  had  come  first,  and  the  evil, 
when  it  did  come,  did  not  stamp  itself  into  the  ground- 
work of  his  imagination.  The  following  summer  he 
visited  his  travelling  companion  Jones  in  Wales,  made 
a  walking  tour  through  that  country,  and  beheld  at 
midnight,  on  Snowdon,  that  marvelous  moonlight  vis- 
ion, which  toward  the  end  of  "  The  Prelude  "  he  em- 
ploys as  an  emblem  of  the  transmuting  power  which 
resides  in  a  high  imagination,  and  which  it  exerts  on 
the  visible  universe. 

When  in  London,  he  had  heard  Burke  speaking 
from  his  place  hi  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  great 
debates  called  forth  by.  the  Revolution,  then  in  full 
swing ;  but  he  had  listened  unconvinced.  In  Novem- 
ber, 1791,  he  passed  to  Paris,  and  heard  there  the 
speeches  that  were  made  in  the  Hall  of  the  National 
Assembly,  while  Madame  Roland  and  the  Brissotins 
were  in  the  ascendent.  A  few  days  he  wandered 
about  Paris,  surveyed  the  scenes  rendered  famous  by 
recent  events,  and  even  picked  up  a  stone  as  a  relic 
from  the  site  of  the  demolished  Bastile.  This  rage 
for  historic  scenes  he  however  confesses  to  have  been 
in  him  more  affected  than  genuine.  From  Paris  he 
went  to  Orleans,  and  sojourned  there  for  some  time  to 
learn  the  language.  His  chief  acquaintance  there  was 
Beaupois,  according  to  Wordsworth's  description,  a 
rarely  gifted  soul,  pure  and  elevated  in  his  aims.  In 
youth  he  had  been  devoted  to  the  service  of  ladies, 
with  whom  beauty  of  countenance,  grace  of  figure,  and 
refined  bearing  made  him  a  great  favorite.  But  now, 
though  by  birth  one  of  the  old  Frencli  noblesse,  he  had 
severed  himself  from  his  order,  and  given  himself  with 
chivalrous  devotion  to  the  cause  of  the  poor.  One 
day,  as  Wordsworth  and  he  were  walking  near  Or- 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  19 

leans,  they  passed  a  hungry-looking  girl  leading  a  half- 
starved  heifer  by  a  cord  tied  to  its  horn.  The  beast 
was  picking  a  scanty  meal  from  the  lane,  while  the 
girl,  with  pallid  hands  and  heartless  look,  was  knitting 
for  her  bread.  Pointing  to  her,  Beaupois  said  with 
vehemence,  "It  is  against  that  we  are  fighting."  As 
they  two  wandered  about  the  old  forests  around  the 
city,  they  eagerly  discussed,  both  the  great  events  that 
were  crowding  on  each  other,  and  also  those  abstract 
questions  about  civil  government,  and  man's  natural 
rights,  which  the  times  naturally  suggested.  Words- 
worth owns  that  he  threw  himself  headlong  into  those 
questions  without  the  needful  preparation,  knowing 
little  of  the  past  history  of  France  and  of  her  institu- 
tions, and  wholly  unversed  in  political  philosophy.  He 
only  saw  that  the  best  ought  to  rule,  and  that  they 
don't.  In  his  boyhood,  he  says,  he  had  lived  among 
plain  people,  had  never  seen  the  face  of  a  titled  man, 
had  therefore  no  respect  for  nor  belief  in  such.  He 
therefore  now  became  a  patriot  and  republican,  deter- 
mined that  kings  and  aristocracies  should  cease,  and 
longed  for  a  government  of  equal  rights  and  individual 
worth,  whatever  that  may  mean.  In  the  days  that 
were  coming,  abject  poverty  was  to  disappear,  equality 
was  to  bring  in  a  golden  time  of  happiness  and  virtue. 
After  some  months,  spent  together  in  sharing  dreams 
like  these,  they  parted,  Wordsworth  for  Blois,  and 
then  for  the  fierce  metropolis ;  Beaupois  to  perish  ere 
long  — 

"  Fighting  in  supreme  command 
Upon  the  borders  of  the  unhappy  Loire." 

When,  in  the  autumn  of  1792,  Wordsworth  came 
from  Blois  to  Paris,  the  September  massacre  had  taken 
place  but  a  month  before ;  the  king  and  his  family 


20  WORDSWORTH  : 

were  in  prison ;  the  Republic  was  proclaimed,  and 
Robespierre  in  power.  The  young  Englishman  ranged 
through  the  city,  passed  by  the  prison  where  the  king 
lay,  visited  the  Tuileries,  lately  stormed,  and  the  Place 
de  Carrousel,  a  month  since  heaped  with  dead.  As  he 
lay  in  the  garret  of  a  hotel  hard  by,  sleepless,  and  filled 
with  thoughts  of  what  had  just  taken  place,  he  seemed 
to  hear  a  voice  that  cried  aloud  to  the  whole  city, 
"  Sleep  no  more."  Years  after,  those  scenes  still 
troubled  him  in  dreams.  He  had  ghastly  visions  of 
scaffolds  hung  with  innocent  victims,  or  of  crowds  ready 
for  butchery,  and  mad  with  the  levity  of  despair.  In 
his  sleep  he  seemed  to  be  pleading  in  vain  for  the  life 
of  friends,  or  for  his  own,  before  a  savage  tribunal. 
A  page  of  "  The  Prelude  "  is  filled  with  the  some- 
what vague  reflections  that  came  to  him  as  he  lay 
sleepless  in  his  garret.  The  most  definite  of  these  is, 
that  a  nation's  destiny  often  hangs  on  the  action  of 
single  persons,  and  that  the  bonds  of  one  common 
humanity  transcend  those  of  country  and  race.  These 
vague  truisms  Lockhart,  glad  no  doubt  to  make  the 
young  republican  poet  look  ridiculous,  condenses  into 
this  :  "  He  revolved  in  his  mind  how  the  crisis  might 
be  averted,  and,  taking  the  measure  of  himself  and  of 
the  various  factions,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he, 
William  Wordsworth,  was  the  proper  person  to  rally 
the  nation  and  conduct  the  revolution  to  a  happy 
issue."  What  authority  for  this  interpretation  Lock- 
hart  had,  except  his  wish  to  ridicule  Wordsworth,  it  is 
not  easy  to  guess.  But  just  at  this  crisis,  when  the 
young  poet,  whatever  line  he  had  taken,  was  in  immi- 
nent danger  of  falling  along  with  his  friends,  the 
Brissotins,  in  the  then  impending  massacres  of  May, 
he  was  forced  —  by  what  he  then  thought  a  harsh  ne- 
cessity, but  afterwards  owned  to  be  a  gracious  provi- 


TEE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  21 

dence  —  to  return  to  England.  Lockhart  suggests  that 
his  friends  at  home,  becoming  aware  of  the  peril  he 
was  in,  prudently  recalled  him  by  stopping  the  supplies. 

Returning  to  England  at  the  close  of  1792,  he  spent 
some  time  in  London  in  great  unsettlement  and  mental 
perplexity.  He  was  horrified  with  the  excesses  in 
which  the  Revolution  had  landed,  yet  not  the  less  he 
clung  to  his  republican  faith,  and  his  hope  of  the 
revolutionary  cause.  When  at  length  Britain  inter- 
posed, his  indignation  knew  no  bounds  ;  this  step,  he 
said,  was  the  first  great  shock  his  moral  nature  re- 
ceived. With  an  evil  eye,  he  watched,  off  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  the  fleet  that  was  to  transport  our  armies  to  the 
Continent, — heard  of  the  disasters  of  our  arms  with 
joy,  and  of  our  success  with  bitterness.  When  every 
month  brought  tidings  of  fresh  enormities  in  France, 
and  opponents  taunted  him  with  these  results  of  equal- 
ity and  popular  government,  he  retorted  that  these 
were  but  the  overflow  of  a  reservoir  of  guilt,  which  had 
had  been  filling  up  for  centuries  by  the  wrong  doings 
of  kings  and  nobles.  Soon  France  entered  on  a  war 
of  conquest,  and  he  was  doomed  to  see  his  last  hopes 
of  liberty  betrayed.  Still  striving  to  hide  the  wounds 
of  mortified  presumption,  he  clung,  as  he  tells  us,  more 
firmly  than  ever  to  his  old  tenets,  while  the  friends  of 
old  institutions  goaded  him  still  further  by  their  tri- 
umphant scorn.  Overwhelmed  with  shame  and  despond- 
ency at  the  shipwreck  of  his  golden  dreams,  he  turned 
to  probe  the  foundations  on  which  all  society  rests. 
Not  only  institutions,  customs,  law,  but  even  the 
grounds  of  moral  obligation  and  distinctions  of  right 
and  wrong,  disappeared.  Demanding  formal  proof, 
q,nd  finding  none,  he  abandoned  moral  questions  in  de- 
spair. This  was  the  crisis  of  his  malady. 

The  nether  gloom  into  which  he  was  plunged,  and 


22  WORDSWORTH: 

the  steps  by  which  he  won  his  way  back  to  upper  air, 
are  set  forth  in  the  concluding  Books  of  "  The  Pre- 
lude," and  are  partly  described  in  the  character  of  the 
Solitary  in  "  The  Excursion."  These  self-descriptions, 
though  somewhat  vague,  are  yet  well  worth  attention, 
for  the  light  they  throw  on  Wordsworth's  own  mental 
history,  and  as  illustrating  by  what  exceptional  methods 
one  of  the  greatest  minds  of  that  time  was  floated  clear 
of  the  common  wreck  in  which  so  many  were  en- 
tangled. His  moral  being  had  received  such  a  shock 
that,  both  as  regards  man  and  nature,  he  tried  to  close 
his  heart  against  the  sources  of  his  former  strength. 
The  whole  past  of  history,  he  believed,  was  one  great 
mistake,  and  the  best  hope  for  the  human  race  was  to 
cut  itself  off  forever  from  all  sympathy  with  it  Even 
the  highest  creations  of  the  old  poets  lost  their  charm 
for  him.  They  seemed  to  him  mere  products  of  pas- 
sion and  prejudice,  wanting  altogether  in  the  nobility 
of  reason.  He  tried  by  narrow  syllogisms,  he  tells  us, 
to  unsoul  those  mysteries  of  being  which  have  been 
through  all  ages  the  bonds  of  man's  brotherhood.  This 
is  rather  vague ;  but  perhaps  we  are  not  wrong  in  sup- 
posing it  to  mean  that  he  grew  skeptical  of  those  higher 
faiths  which  cannot  be  demonstrably  proved.  This 
moral  state  reacted  on  his  feelings  about  the  visible 
universe.  It  became  to  him  less  spiritual  than  it  used 
to  be.  Turning  on  it  the  same  microscopic,  unimagina- 
tive eye  which  he  had  turned  on  the  moral  world,  he 
learnt,  by  an  evil  infection  of  the  time,  alien  to  his 
own  nature,  to  compare  scene  with  scene,  to  search  for 
mere  novelties  of  form  and  color,  dead  to  the  moral 
power  and  the  sentiment  that  resides  in  each  individual 
place.  He  fell  for  a  time  under  a  painful  tyranny  of 
the  eye,  that  craves  ever  new  combinations  of  form, 
uncounteracted  by  the  reports  of  the  other  senses,  unin- 


TEE  MAN  AND   TEE  POET.  23 

formed  by  that  finer  influence  that  streams  from  the 
soul  into  the  eye. 

In  this  sickness  of  the  soul,  this  "  obscuration  of  the 
master  vision,"  his  sole  sister  Dorothy  came,  like  his 
better  angel,  to  his  side.  Convinced  that  his  office  on 
earth  was  to  be  a  poet,  not  to  break  his  heart  against 
the  hard  problems  of  politics  and  philosophy,  she  led 
him  away  from  perplexing  theories  and  crowded  cities 
into  the  open  air  of  heaven.  Together  they  visited, 
travelling  on  foot,  many  of  the  most  interesting  districts 
of  their  native  England,  and  mingled  freely  with  the 
country  people  and  the  poor.  There,  amid  the  fresh- 
ness of  nature,  his  fevered  spirit  was  cooled  down, 
earth's  "  first  diviner  influence  "  returned,  he  saw  already 
things  again  as  he  had  seen  them  in  boyhood.  It  was 
not  merely  that  nature  acted  on  his  senses  and  so  re- 
stored his  mind's  health.  His  understanding  saw  in  the 
processes  of  earth  and  sky,  going  on  by  steadfast  laws, 
a  visible  image  of  right  reason.  His  overwrought 
feelings  were  cooled  and  soothed  by  the  contemplation 
of  objects  in  which  there  is  no  fever  of  passion,  no  im- 
patience, no  restless  vanity.  His  imagination,  dazzled 
erewhile  with  the  whirl  of  wild  and  transitory  projects, 
found  here  something  to  rest  on  that  was  enduring. 
This  free  intercourse  with  nature  in  time  brought  him 
back  to  his  true  self,  so  that  he  began  to  look  on  life 
and  the  frame-work  of  society  with  other  eyes,  and  to 
seek  there  too  for  that  which  is  permanent  and  in- 
trinsically good.  At  this  time,  as  he  and  his  sister 
wandered  about  various  out-of-the-way  parts  of  Eng- 
land, where  they  were  strangers,  he  found  not  delight 
only,  but  instruction,  in  conversing  with  all  whom  he 
\net»  The  lonely  roads  were  open  schools  to  him. 
There,  as  he  entered  into  conversation  with  the  poor- 
est, often  with  the  outcast  and  the  forlorn,  and  heard 


24  WORDS  WORTH i 

from  them  their  own  histories,  he  got  a  new  insight 
into  human  souls,  discerned  in  them  a  depth  and  a 
worth  where  none  appear  to  careless  eyes.  The  per- 
ception of  these  things  made  him  loathe  the  thought 
of  those  ambitious  projects  which  had  lately  deceived 
him.  He  ceased  to  admire  strength  detached  from 
moral  purpose,  and  learned  to  prize  unnoticed  worth, 
the  meek  virtues,  and  lowly  charities.  Settled  judg- 
ments of  right  and  wrong  returned,  but  they  were  es- 
sential, not  conventional  judgments.  In  his  estimate  of 
men  he  set  no  store  by  rank  or  station,  little  by  those 
"  formalities "  which  have  been  misnamed  education. 
For  he  seemed  to  himself  to  see  utter  hollowness  hi 
the  talking,  so-called  intellectual  world,  and  little  good 
got  by  those  who  had  held  most  intercourse  with  it. 
He  now  set  himself  to  see  whether  a  life  of  toil  was 
necessarily  one  of  ignorance ;  whether  goodness  was  a 
delicate  plant  requiring  garden  culture,  and  intellectual 
power  a  thing  confined  to  those  who  call  themselves 
educated  men.  And  as  he  mingled  freely  with  all 
kinds  of  people,  he  found  a  pith  of  sense  and  a  solidity 
of  judgment  here  and  there  among  the  unlearned 
which  he  had  failed  to  find  in  the  most  lettered  ;  from 
obscure  men  he  heard  high  truths,  words  that  struck  in 
with  his  own  best  thoughts  of  what  was  fair  and  good. 
And  love,  true  love  and  pure,  he  found  was  no  flower 
reared  only  in  what  is  called  refined  society,  and  requir- 
ing leisure  and  polished  manners  for  its  growth.  Ex- 
cessive labor  and  grinding  poverty,  he  grants,  by 
preoccupying  the  mind  with  sensual  wants,  often  crush 
the  finer  affections.  And  it  is  difficult  for  these  to 
thrive  in  the  overcrowded  alleys  of  cities,  where  the 
human  heart  is  sick,  and  the  eye  looks  only  on  de- 
formity. But  in  all  circumstances,  save  the  most  ab- 
ject, sometimes  even  in  these,  he  had  seen  the  soul 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  25 

triumphing  over  sense,  the  heart  beating  all  the  truer 
from  living  in  contact  with  natural  wants,  and  with  the 
reality  of  things.  In  our  talk  of  these  matters  we  mis- 
lead each  other,  and  books  mislead  us  still  more,  — 
books,  which  in  that  day  more  than  now,  being  written 
mostly  for  the  wealthy,  put  things  in  artificial  light ; 
lower  the  many  for  the  pleasure  of  the  few,  magnify 
external  differences  and  artificial  barriers  that  separate 
man  from  man,  and-  neglect  the  one  human  heart.  In 
opposition  to  all  this,  he  himself  had  found  "  love  in 
huts  where  poor  men  lie,"  the  finest  bloom  of  the 
affections  where  the  outward  man  was  rude  to  look 
upon  ;  under  the  humblest  guise  had  seen  souls  that 
were  sanctified  by  duty,  patience,  and  sorrow:  — 

"  Of  these,  said  I,  shall  be  my  song;  of  these, 
If  future  years  mature  me  for  the  task, 
Will  I  record  the  praises,  making  verse 
Deal  boldly  with  substantial  things.     My  theme 
No  other  than  the  very  heart  of  man, 
As  found  among  the  best  of  those  who  live  — 
Not  unexalted  by  religious  faith, 
Not  uninformed  by  books,  good  books,  though  few  — 
In  nature's  presence:  thence  may  I  select 
Sorrow,  that  is  not  sorrow,  but  delight; 
And  miserable  love,  that  is  not  pain 
To  think  of,  for  the  glory  that  redounds 
Therefrom  to  human-kind,  and  what  we  are." 

Then  -follows  a  passage,  perhaps  the  most  finely 
thought,  most  perfectly  expressed,  in  the  whole  "  Pre- 
lude," in  which  he  describes  the  different  kinds  of 
power,  the  different  grades  of  nobleness,  which  he  had 
found  among  the  poor.  It  is  too  long  to  quote  here, 
but  those  who  care  for  these  things  will  find  it  worth 
turning  to. 

His  mind  being  thus  restored  to  tone,  and  able  to 
look  once  more  on  common  life  with  love  and  imagina- 
tive delight,  the  visible  world  reassumed  the  splendor 


26  WORDSWORTH. 

which  it  had  worn  for  him  in  childhood,  combined  with 
that  which  only  thought  could  add  —  a  fuller  conscious- 
ness of  the  sources  whence  this  beauty  comes.  His 
eye  now  looked  on  nature  with  the  wonder  of  the 
world's  childhood,  mellowed  with  the  reflectiveness  of 
its  mature  age. 

Such  is  the  pathway  by  which  Wordsworth  describes 
himself  as  having  travelled  from  darkness  up  to  light, 
from  distrust  of  all  truth  and  despair,  back  to  clear  con- 
victions, and  peace  and  hope.  In  reading  it  as  set  forth 
in  "  The  Prelude  "  and  "  The  Excursion,"  many  have 
complained  that  his  experience  was  an  exceptional  one, 
and  contains  no  help  for  others.  If  so,  small  blame  to 
him.  Processes  of  this  kind  cannot  be  transferred  bod- 
ily from  one  mind  to  another,  like  historical  facts  or 
mathematical  proofs.  It  is  not  possible  for  minds  of 
the  order  of  Wordsworth's,  which  live  by  intuitions, 
rather  than  by  chains  of  reasoning,  to  impart  to  others, 
or  indeed  to  do  more  than  hint  at  those  intuitions, 
which,  though  the  light  of  all  their  seeing,  are  born 
within  them,  they  know  not  how.  Even  those  who 
deal  more  with  processes  of  reasoning,  and  who  can 
trace  exactly  the  lines  of  thought  by  which  they  seem 
to  themselves  to  have  been  led  upward,  as  Coleridge 
has  in  some  measure  done,  although  they  may  commu- 
nicate to  others  the  intellectual  shape  which  their  own 
spiritual  apprehensions  have  taken,  cannot  at  the  same 
time  give  that  which  is  the  life  of  these  apprehensions. 
Those  who  read  their  arguments  may,  no  doubt,  grasp 
them  and  find  help  in  them,  in  so  far  as  their  intellect- 
ual difficulties  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  writer. 
But  will  this  enable  them  to  envisage  and  make  their 
own  the  primal  truths  on  which  the  reasonings  repose, 
and  from  which  alone  they  draw  their  power  ?  Is  it  not 
of  the  nature  of  moral  and  spiritual  truths,  that  if  they 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  POET.  27 

once  reach  a  man,  they  are  their  own  sufficient  evi- 
dence ?  Once  to  feel  them  is  to  know  them  to  be  true, 
with  a  conviction  such  as  no  arguments  can  produce. 
But  who  shall  enable  another  thus  to  feel  truths  which 
may  be  to  himself  the  life  of  life  ?  Not  the  reasoner. 
He  at  best  but  convinces  the  understanding,  does  not 
satisfy  the  spirit.  The  inspired  thinker,  poet  or  other, 
can  do  more.  He  can  touch  others  who  are  lower 
sunk  than  himself,  by  a  kind  of  spiritual  contagion. 
But  even  he  cannot  reach  to  the  bottom,  and  minister 
healing  to  the  mind  diseased.  In  the  last  resort  it  will 
not  be  from  the  intellects  and  teachings  of  others  that 
light  will  come.  That,  if  it  come  at  all,  will  come  from 
a  region  beyond  a  man's  consciousness,  and  by  a  pro- 
cess that  he  cannot  analyze.  In  these  deepest,  most 
secret  workings  of  the  soul,  no  one  man's  experience 
will  exactly  fit  in  with  that  of  any  other  man. 

But  here  I  must  pause.  For  in  this  account  of 
Wordsworth's  hour  of  darkness  and  restoration  to  light, 
given  almost  in  his  own  words,  I  have  somewhat  out- 
run the  order  of  dates  and  places.  This  restoration, 
though  summed  up  in  the  concluding  books  of  "  The 
Prelude,"  could  not  have  taken  place  hi  a  few  months, 
but  must  have  been  the  work  of  at  least  several  years. 
Though  this  inward  fermentation  working  itself  to 
clearness  was  the  most  important,  the  bread-question 
must,  at  the  same  time,  have  been  tolerably  urgent. 
To  meet  this,  he  had,  as  far  as  appears,  simply  nothing, 
except  what  was  allowed  him  by  his  friends.  Of 
course  neither  they  nor  he  could  long  tolerate  such  a 
state  of  dependence.  What,  then,  was  to  be  done? 
Three  or  four  courses  were  open  to  him  —  the  bar, 
taking  orders,  teaching  private  pupils,  and  writing  for  a 
London  newspaper.  All  passed  under  his  review,  but 
to  each  and  all  he  was  nearly  equally  averse.  It  must 


28  WORDSWORTH: 

have  been  at  this  time  that  he  felt  so  keenly  those  fore- 
bodings, afterwards  beautifully  described  in  his  poem 
of  "  Resolution  and  Independence,"  when  the  fate  of 
Chatterton  and  Burns  rose  mournfully  before  him,  and 
he  asked  himself — 

"  How  can  he  expect  that  others  should 
Build  for  him,  sow  for  him,  and  at  his  call 
Love  him,  who  for  himself  will  take  no  heed  at  all?  " 

In  this  juncture,  the  newspaper  press,  an  effectual 
extinguisher  to  a -possible  poet,  was  ready  to  have  ab- 
sorbed him.  He  had  actually  written  to  a  friend  in 
London,  who  was  supporting  himself  in  this  way,  to 
find  him  like  employment,  when  he  was  delivered  from 
these  importunities  by  a  happy  occurrence.  In  the 
close  of  the  year  1794  and  the  beginning  of  1795,  he 
was  engaged  in  attending  at  Penrith  a  friend,  Raisley 
Calvert,  who  had  fallen  into  a  deep  consumption.  Cal- 
vert  died  early  in  1795,  and  bequeathed  to  Wordsworth 
a  legacy  of  £900.  He  had  divined  "Wordsworth's 
genius,  and  believed  that  he  would  yet  do  great  things. 
Seldom  in  deed  has  so  small  a  sum  produced  larger 
results.  It  removed  at  once  Wordsworth's  anxiety 
about  a  profession,  rescued  him  from  the  newspaper 
press,  set  him  free  to  follow  his  true  bent,  and  give  free 
rein  to  the  poetic  power  he  felt  working  within  him. 

One  of  the  first  results  of  the  legacy  was  to  restore 
Wordsworth  permanently  to  the  society  of  his  sister. 
Hitherto,  though  they  met  whenever  occasion  offered, 
they  had  not  been  able  to  set  up  house  together ;  but 
now  this  was  no  longer  impossible.  And  surely  never 
sister  performed  a  more  delicate  service  for  brother 
than  Dorothy  Wordsworth  did  for  the  poet.  De 
Quincey  has  given  a  full  and  engaging  portrait  of  that 
lady,  as  she  appeared  some  years  later  than  this,  but 
still  hi  her  fervid  prime,  when  he  first  made  acquaints 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  29 

ance  with  her  brother's  family  at  Grasmere.  He  de- 
scribes her  as  of  "warm,  even  ardent  manner,"  now 
bursting  into  strong  expression,  now  checked  by  deco- 
rous self-restraint,  of  profound  sensibility  to  all  things 
beautiful,  with  quick  sympathy  and  deep  impressibility 
for  all  he  said  or  quoted,  seemingly  inwardly  con- 
sumed by  "  a  subtle  fire  of  impassioned  intellect."  And 
yet  withal,  so  little  of  a  literary  lady,  so  entirely  re- 
moved from  being  a  blue-stocking,  that  she  was  ignorant 
of  many  books  and  subjects  which,  to  most  educated 
persons,  were  quite  commonplace.  Such  she  was 
when  De  Quincey  first  saw  her-  more  than  ten  years 
after  the  brother  and  sister  began  to  live  together. 
We  have  seen  how,  when  Wordsworth  returned  from 
France,  depressed  with  shame,  and  despondency  for  his 
shipwrecked  hopes,  she  turned  him  from  dark  and 
harassing  thoughts,  and  brought  him  into  contact  with 
the  healing  powers  of  nature.  In  many  places  of  his 
works  the  poet  has  borne  grateful  testimony  to  all  she 
did  for  him.  At  this  time,  he  tells  us,  it  was  she  who 
maintained  for  him  a  saving  intercourse  with  his  true 
self,  opened  for  him  the  obstructed  passage  between 
head  and  heart,  whence  in  time  came  genuine  self- 
knowledge  and  peace.  Again,  he  says  that  his  imagina- 
tion was  by  nature  too  masculine,  austere,  even  harsh ; 
he  loved  only  the  sublime  and  terrible,  was  blind  to  the 
milder  graces  of  landscape  and  of  character.  She  it 
was  who  softened  and  humanized  him,  opened  his  eyes 
to  the  more  hidden  beauties,  his  heart  to  the  gentler 
affections :  — 

"  She  gave  me  eyes,  she  gave  me  ears : 
And  humble  cares,  and  delicate  fears ; 
A  heart,  the  fountain  of  sweet  tears, 
And  love,  and  thought,  and  joy." 

If  there  were  no  other  records  of  her  than   those 


30  WORDS  WOR  TH : 

brief  extracts  from  her  journal  during  the  Highland 
tour,  which  stand  at  the  head  of  several  of  her  brother's 
jpoems,  these  alone  would  prove  her  possessed  of  a  large 
portion  of  his  genius.  Longer  extracts  from  them  occur 
in  the  poet's  biography  and  in  the  edition  of  the  poems 
of  1857,  and  often  they  seem  nearly  as  good  as  the 
poems  which  they  introduce.  Might  not  that  wonder- 
ful journal,  even  yet,  be  given  entire,  or  nearly  so,  to 
the  world  ? 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1795,  at  Racedown  in 
Dorsetshire,  that  the  brother  and  sister,  on  the  strength 
of  the  nine  hundred  pounds,  set  up  house  together. 
This  was  the  first  home  they  had  of  their  own,  and 
"Wordsworth  always  looked  back  to  it  with  a  special 
love.  So  retired  was  the  place,  that  the  post  came  only 
once  a  week.  But  the  two  read  Italian  together,  gar- 
dened, and  walked  on  the  meadows,  and  on  the  tops  of 
the  combs.  These  were  their  recreations.  For  serious 
work,  Wordsworth  fell  first  to  writing  Imitations  of 
Juvenal,  in  which  he  assailed  fiercely  the  vices  of  the 
time,  but  these  he  never  published.  Then  he  wrote  in 
the  Spenserian  stanza  the  poem  of  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow," 
not  published  till  long  afterwards,  but  in  which  there  is 
more  of  his  real  self  than  in  anything  he  had  yet  done. 
Then  followed  his  tragedy,  "  The  Borderers,"  which  all, 
even  his  greatest  admirers,  feel  to  be  a  failure.  Be- 
sides, there  were  one  or  two  shorter  poems,  in  his 
matured  manner,  such  as  the  "  Cumberland  Beggar," 
which  was  written  partly  here,  partly  at  Alfoxden. 
So  many  trials  had  Wordsworth  to  make,  "  The  Even- 
ing "Walk,"  the  "  Descriptive  Sketches,"  "  Imitations  of 
Juvenal,"  •'  The  Borderers,"  before  he  found  out  his 
true  strength  and  his  proper  style. 

More  important,  however,  than  any  poetry  composed 
at  Racedown  was  his  first  meeting  there  with  S.  T 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  81 

Coleridge.  Perhaps  no  two  such  men  have  met  any- 
where on  English  ground  during  this  century.  Cole- 
ridge when  at  Cambridge  had  read  the  "  Descriptive 
Sketches,"  and  finding  in  them  something  he  had  never 
found  in  poetry  before,  longed  to  know  their  author. 
Since  leaving  Cambridge,  though  two  years  and  a  half 
younger  than  Wordsworth,  he  had  gone  through  half  a 
lifetime  of  adventure,  had  served  as'  a  private  in  a 
cavalry  regiment,  been  an  enthusiast  for  the  French 
Revolution,  had  tried  to  emigrate  with  Southey,  and  to 
found  a  Pantisocracy  on  the  banks  of  the  Susquehanna, 
been  stopped  by  want  of  funds,  then  turned  Unitarian 
preacher,  and  was  now  a  young  poet  and  philosopher 
on  the  loose.  Miss  Wordsworth  describes  him  as  he 
looked  on  his  first  visit  to  Racedown.  For  the  first 
three  minutes  he  seemed  plain :  "  Thin  and  pale,  the 
lower  part  of  the  face  not  good,  wide  mouth,  thick  lips, 
not  very  good  teeth,  longish,  loose,  half-curling,  rough, 
black  hair,"  —  a  contrast  to  Wordsworth  at  this  time, 
with  his  fine  light-brown  hair  and  beautiful  teeth.  But 
the  moment  Coleridge  began  to  speak,  you  thought  no 
more  of  these  defects.  You  saw  him  as  his  friend  after- 
wards described  him  — 

"  The  rapt  one  of  the  godlike  forehead, 
The  heaven-eyed  creature." 

Or,  as  he  elsewhere  more  fully  portrayed  him — 

"  A  noticeable  man  with  large  grey  eyes, 
And  a  pale  face  that  seemed  undoubtedly 
As  if  a  blooming  face  it  ought  to  be ; 
Heavy  his  low-hung  lip  did  oft  appear 
Depressed  by  weight  of  brooding  phantasy; 
Profound  his  forehead  was,  though  not  severe." 

During  this  visit  Wordsworth  read  aloud  to  Cole- 
ridge nearly  twelve  hundred  lines  of  blank  verse, — 
;<  superior,"  says  Coleridge,  "to  anything  in  our  Ian- 


32  WORDSWORTH: 

guage."  This  probably  included  the  story  of  Margaret, 
or  "The  Ruined  Cottage,"  which  now  stands  at  the 
opening  of  "  The  Excursion,"  and  certainly,  in  blank 
verse,  Wordsworth  never  surpassed  that.  When  they 
parted  Coleridge  says,  "  I  felt  myself  a  small  man  beside 
Wordsworth  ; "  while  of  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  cer- 
tainly no  over-estimater  of  other  men,  said,  "  I  have 
known  many  men  who  have  done  wonderful  things,  but 
the  only  wonderful  man  I  ever  knew  was  Coleridge." 
Their  first  intercourse  had  ripened  into  friendship,  and 
they  longed  to  see  more  of  each  other.  As  Coleridge 
was  at  this  time  living  at  the  village  of  Nether  Stowey 
in  Somersetshire,  the  Wordsworths  removed  in  the 
autumn  of  1797  to  the  country-house  of  Alfoxden,  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood.  The  time  he  spent  at 
Alfoxden  was  one  of  the  most  delightful  seasons  of 
Wordsworth's  life.  The  two  young  men  were  of  one 
mind  in  their  poetic  tastes  and  principles,  one  too  in 
political  and  social  views,  and  each  admired  the  other 
more  than  he  did  any  other  living  man.  In  outward 
circumstances,  too,  they  were  alike ;  both  poor  in 
money,  but  rich  in  thought  and  imagination,  both  in  the 
prime  of  youth,  and  boundless  in  hopeful  energy. 
That  summer  as  they  wandered  aloft  on  the  airy  ridge 
of  Quantock,  or  dived  down  its  silvan  combs,  what  high 
talk  they  must  have  held !  Theirs  was  the  age  for 
boundless,  endless,  unwearied  talk  on  all  things  human 
and  divine.  Hazlitt  has  said  of  Coleridge  in  his  youth, 
that  he  seemed  as  if  he  would  talk  on  forever,  and  you 
wished  him  to  talk  on  forever.  With  him,  as  his  youth, 
so  was  his  age.  But  most  men,  as  life  wears  on,  having 
found  that  all  their  many  and  vehement  talkings  have 
served  no  lasting  end  of  the  soul,  grow  more  brief  and 
taciturn.  Long  after,  Wordsworth  speaks  of  this  as  a 
very  pleasant  and  productive  time.  The  poetic  well- 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  83 

head,  now  fairly  unsealed,  was  flowing  freely.  Many 
of  the  shorter  poems  were  then  composed  from  the 
scenery  that  was  before  his  eyes,  and  from  incidents 
there  seen  or  heard.  Among  the  most  characteristic 
of  these  were,  "  We  are  Seven,"  "  The  Mad  Mother," 
«  The  Last  of  the  Flock,"  "  Simon  Lee,"  "  Expostula- 
tion and  Reply,"  "  The  Tables  Turned,"  "  Lines  to  his 
Sister,"  beginning  "  It  is  the  first  mild  day  of  March," 
"  Lines  in  early  Spring,"  beginning  "  I  heard  a  thou- 
sand blended  notes,"  the  last  containing  these  words, 
which  give  the  key-note  to  "Wordsworth's  feeling  about 
nature  at  this  time  — 

"  And  'tis  my  faith  that  every  flower 
Enjoys  the  air  it  breathes." 

If  any  one  will  read  over  the  short  poems  above 
named,  they  will  let  him  see  further  into  Wordsworth's 
mood  during  this,  the  fresh  germinating  spring-time  of 
his  genius,  than  any  words  about  them  can. 

The  occasion  of  their  making  a  joint  literary  ven- 
ture was  curious.  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  and  his  sis- 
ter wished  to  make  a  short  walking  tour,  for  which 
five  pounds  were  needed, .  but  were  not  forthcoming. 
To  supply  this  want  they  agreed  to  make  a  joint 
poem,  and  send  it  to  some  magazine  which  would  give 
the  required  sum.  Accordingly,  one  evening  as  they 
trudged  along  the  Quantock  Hills,  they  planned  "  The 
Ancient  Mariner,"  founded  on  a  dream  which  a  friend 
of  Coleridge  had  dreamed.  Coleridge  supplied  most 
of  the  incidents,  and  almost  all  the  lines.  Words- 
worth contributed  the  incident  of  the  shooting  of  the 
albatross,  with  a  line  here  and  there.  "The  Ancient 
Mariner "  soon  grew,  till  it  was  beyond  the  desired 
five  pounds'  worth,  so  they  thought  of  a  joint  volume. 

Coleridge  was  to  take  supernatural  subjects,  or  roman- 
3 


34  WORDS  WOR  TH : 

tic,  and  invest  them  with  a  human  interest  and  resem- 
blance of  truth.  Wordsworth  was  to  take  common 
every-day  incidents,  and  by  faithful  adherence  to  na- 
ture, and  by  true  but  modifying  colors  of  imagination, 
was  to  shed  over  common  aspects  of  earth  and  facts 
of  life  such  a  charm  as  light  and  shade,  sunset  and 
moonlight,  shed  over  a  familiar  landscape.  Words- 
worth was  so  much  the  more  industrious  of  the  two, 
that  he  had  completed  enough  for  a  volume  when 
Coleridge  had  only  finished  "  The  Ancient  Mariner," 
and  begun  "  Christabel "  and  "  The  Dark  Ladie."  Cot- 
tie,  a  Bristol  bookseller,  was  summoned  from  Bristol  to 
arrange  for  publication,  and  he  has  left  a  gossiping 
but  amusing  account  of  his  intercourse  with  the  two 
poets  at  this  time,  and  his  visit  to  Alfoxden.  He 
agreed  to  give  Wordsworth  £30  for  the  twenty-two 
pieces  of  his  which  made  up  the  first  volume  of  the 
"  Lyrical  Ballads,"  while  for  "  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient 
Marinere,"  which  was  to  head  the  volume,  he  made  a 
separate  bargain  with  Coleridge.  This  volume,  which 
appeared  in  the  autumn  of  1798,  was  the  first  which 
made  Wordsworth  known  to  the  world  as  a  poet,  for 
the  "  Descriptive  Sketches "  had  attracted  little  or  no 
notice.  Of  the  ballads  or  shorter  poems,  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  were  mostly  composed  at  Alfoxden,  and 
which  reflect  the  feelings  and  incidents  of  his  life  there, 
I  shall  reserve  what  I  have  to  say  for  a  more  general 
survey.  The  volume  closes  with  one  poem  in  another 
style,  in  which  the  poet  speaks  out  his  inmost  feel- 
ings, and  in  his  own  "  grand  style."  This  is  the  poem 
on  Tin  tern  Abbey,  composed  during  a  walking  tour  on 
the  Wye  with  his  sister,  just  before  leaving  Alfoxden 
for  the  Continent.  Read  these  lines  over  once  again, 
however  well  you  may  know  them.  Bear  in  mind 
what  has  been  told  of  the  way  his  childhood  and  boy- 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  35 

hood  had  passed,  living  in  the  eye  of  nature,  the  sepa- 
ration that  followed  from  his  favorite  haunts  and  ways, 
the  wild  fermentation  of  thought,  the  moral  tempest 
he  had  gone  through,  the  return  to  nature's  lonely 
places,  and  to  common  life  and  peaceful  thoughts,  with 
intellect  and  heart  deepened,  expanded,  humanized,  by 
having  long  brooded  over  the  ever-recurring  questions 
of  man's  nature  and  destiny ;  bear  these  things  in 
mind,  and  as  you  read,  every  line  of  that  master- 
piece will  come  out  with  deeper  meaning  and  in  ex- 
acter  outline.  And  then  the  concluding  lines,  in, which 
the  poet  turns  to  his  sister,  his  fellow-traveller,  with 
"  the  shooting  lights  in  those  wild  eyes,"  in  which 
he  caught  "  gleams  of  past  existence  "  — 

"  If  solitude,  or  fear,  or  pain,  or  grief, 
Should  be  thy  portion  "  — 

what  prophetic  pathos  do  these  words  assume  when  we 
remember  how  long  and  mournfully  ere  life  ended 
those  wild  eyes  were  darkened  ! 

Before  the  volume  appeared,  Wordsworth  and  his 
sister  had  left  Alfoxden,  and  sailed  with  Coleridge  for 
Germany.  It  has  been  said  that  the  reason  for  their 
leaving  Somersetshire  was  their  falling  under  suspicion 
as  hatchers  of  sedition.  A  government  spy,  with  a 
peculiarly  long  nose,  was  sent  down  to  watch  them. 
Coleridge  tells  an  absurd  story,  how,  as  they  lay  on 
the  Quantock  Hills,  .conversing  about  Spinoza,  the  spy, 
as  he  skulked  behind  a  bank,  overheard  their  talk,  and 
thought  they  were  speaking  about  himself  under  the 
nickname  of  "  Spy -nosey."  Coleridge  was  believed  to 
have  little  harm  in  him,  for  he  was  a  crack-brained, 
talking  fellow;  but  "that  Wordsworth  is  either  a 
smuggler  or  a  traitor,  and  means  mischief.  He  never 
speaks  to  any  one,  haunts  lonely  places,  walks  by 


36  WORDSWORTH: 

moonlight,  and  is  always  '  booing  about '  by  himself." 
Such  was  the  country  talk  ;  and  the  result  of  it  was, 
the  agent  for  the  owner  of  Alfoxden  refused  to  re-let 
the  house  to  so  suspicious  a  character.  So  the  three 
determined  to  pack  up,  and  winter  on  the  Continent. 
At  Hamburg,  however,  they  parted  company.  Their 
ostensible  purpose  was  to  learn  German,  but  Words- 
worth and  his  sister  did  little  at  this.  He  spent  the 
winter  of  1798-99,  the  coldest  of  the  century,  in 
Goslar,  and  there,  by  the  German  charcoal-burners,  the 
poet's  mind  reverted  to  Esthwake  and  Westmoreland 
hills,  and  struck  out  a  number  of  poems  in  his  finest 
vein.  "  She  dwelt  among  the  untrodden  ways,"  ''  Lucy," 
or  "  Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shower,"  "  Ruth," 
"  The  Poet's  Epitaph,"  «  Nutting,"  "  The  Two  April 
Mornings,"  "  The  Fountain,"  "  Matthew,"  are  all 
products  of  this  winter.  So  Wordsworth  missed  Ger- 
man, and  gave  the  world  instead  immortal  poems. 
Coleridge  went  alone  to  Gottingen,  learned  German, 
dived  for  the  rest  of  his  life  deep  into  transcendental 
metaphysics,  and  the  world  got  no  more  Ancient 
Mariners. 

In  the  spring  of  1799,  Wordsworth  and  his  sister  set 
forth  from  Goslar  on  their  return  to  England.  As 
they  left  that  city  behind,  and  felt  the  spring  breeze 
fan  their  cheeks,  Wordsworth  poured  forth  that  joyful 
strain  with  which  ''  The  Prelude  "  opens.  Arrived  in 
their  native  land,  they  passed  most  of  the  remainder  of 
the  year  with  their  kindred,  the  Hutchinsons,  at  Sock- 
burn-on-Tees,  occasionally  travelling  into  the  neighbor- 
ing dales  and  fells  of  Yorkshire.  In  September, 
Wordsworth  took  Coleridge,  who  also  had  returned 
from  abroad,  and  had  seen  but  few  mountains  in  his 
life,  on  a  walking  tour  to  show  him  the  hills  and  lakes 
of  native  Westmoreland.  "  Haweswater,"  Coleridge 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  87 

writes,  "  kept  my  eyes  dim  with  tears,  but  I  received 
the  deepest  delight  from  the  divine  sisters,  Rydal  and 
Grasmere."  It  was  then  that  Wordsworth  saw  the 
small  house  at  the  Town- End  of  Grasmere,  which  he 
and  his  sister  soon  after  fixed  on  as  their  home. 

From  Sockburn-on-Tees  William  and  Dorothy 
Wordsworth  set  forth  a  little  before  the  shortest  day, 
and  walked  on  foot  over  the  bleak  fells  that  form  the 
watershed  of  Yorkshire  and  Westmoreland.  As  side 
by  side  they  paced  the  long  dales,  and  set  their  faces 
to  the  Hambleton  hills,  the  ground  was  frozen  hard 
under  their  feet,  and  the  snow-showers  were  driving 
against  them.  Yet  they  enjoyed  the  snow-showers, 
turned  aside  to  see  the  frozen  waterfalls,  and  stopped 
to  watch  the  changing  drapery  of  cloud,  sunshine,  and 
snow-drift  as  it  coursed  the  hills.  At  night  they 
lodged  in  cottages  or  small  wayside  inns,  and  there,  by 
the  kitchen  fire,  Wordsworth  gave  words  to  the 
thoughts  that  had  occurred  to  him  during  the  day. 
A  great  part  of  "  Hart-leap  Well "  was  composed 
during  one  of  these  evenings,  from  a  tradition  he  had 
heard  that  day  from  a  native.  And  of  a  sunset  seen 
during  the  same  journey,  some  of  the  glory  still  lives 
in  the  sonnet  ending 

"  They  are  of  the  sky, 
And  from  our  earthly  memory  fade  away." 

The  poet  and  his  sister  reached  Grasmere  on  the 
shortest  day  of  the  year  1799,  and  settled  in  the  small 
two-storied  cottage  at  that  part  of  the  village  called 
Town-End.  The  house  had  formerly  been  a  public 
house,  with  the  sign  of  the  Dove  and  the  Olive  Bough, 
but  was  henceforth  to  be  identified  with  Wordsworth's 
poetic  prime.  The  mode  of  life  on  which  they  were 
entering  was  one  which  their  friends,  no  doubt,  and 


38  WORDSWORTH: 

most  sensible  people,  called  a  mad  project.  With 
barely  a  hundred  pounds  a  year  between  them,  they 
were  turning  their  back  on  the  world,  cutting  them- 
selves off  from  professions,  chances  of  getting  on,  so- 
ciety, and  settling  themselves  down  in  an  out-of-the- 
way  corner,  with  no  employment  but  verse-making, 
no  neighbors  but  the  homely  dalesmen.  When  a  man 
makes  such  a  choice,  he  has  need  to  look  well  what  he 
does,  and  to  be  sure  that  he  can  go  through  with  it. 
In  the  world's  eyes  nothing  but  success  will  justify 
such  a  renunciant,  and  the  world  will  not  be  too  ready 
to  grant  that  success  has  been  attained.  But  Words- 
worth, besides  a  prophet-like  devotion  to  the  truths  he 
saw,  had  a  prudence,  self-denial,  and  perseverance,  rare 
among  the  sons  of  song.  To  himself  may  be  applied 
the  words  he  uses  in  a  letter  to  Sir  George  Beaumont, 
when  speaking  of  another  subject  than  poetry:  "It 
is  such  an  animating  sight  to  see  a  man  of  genius,  re- 
gardless of  temporary  gains,  whether  of  money  or 
praise,  fixing  his  attention  solely  upon  what  is  interest- 
ing and  permanent,  and  finding  his  happiness  in  an 
entire  devotion  of  himself  to  such  pursuits  as  shall 
most  ennoble  human  nature.  We  have  not  yet  seen 
enough  of  this  in  modern  times."  He  himself  showed 

O 

this  sight,  if  any  man  of  his  age  did.  Plain  living  and 
high  thinking  were  not  only  praised  in  verse,  but  acted 
out  by  him  and  his  sister  in  that  cottage  home. 

The  year  1800  was  ushered  in  by  a  long  storm, 
which  blocked  up  the  roads  for  months,  and  kept  them 
much  indoors.  This  put  their  tempers  to  the  proof, 
but  they  stood  the  test.  Spring  weather  set  them  free, 
and  brought  to  their  home  a  much  loved  sailor  brother, 
John,  who  was  captain  of  an  Indiaman.  In  their 
frugal  housekeeping  the  sister,  it  may  be  believed,  had 
much  to  do  indoors,  but  she  was  always  ready,  both 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  39 

then  and  years  after,  to  accompany  her  brother  in  his 
mountain  walks.  Those  who  may  wish  to  know  more 
of  their  abode  and  way  of  life,  will  find  an  interesting 
sketch  of  these  given  by  De  Quincey,  as  he  saw  them 
seven  years  later.  There  was  one  small  room  con- 
taining their  few  books,  which  was  called,  by  courtesy, 
the  library.  But  Wordsworth  was  no  reader ;  the 
English  poets  and  ancient  history  were  the  only  two 
subjects  he  was  really  well  read  in.  He  tells  a  friend 
that  he  had  not  spent  five  shillings  on  new  books  in 
as  many  years,  and  of  the  few  old  ones  which  made 
up  his  collection  he  had  not  read  one  fifth.  As  for 
his  study,  that  was  in  the  open  air.  "  By  the  side  of 
the  brook  that  runs  through  Easdale,"  he  says,  "  I 
have  composed  thousands  of  verses  : "  — 

"  He  murmurs  near  the  running  brooks 
A  music  sweeter  than  their  own." 

Another  favorite  resort  for  composition  at  this  time 
was  the  tall  fir-wood  on  the  hillside  above  the  old  road 
leading  from  Grasmere  to  Rydal.  Society  they  found 
in  the  families  of  the  "  statesmen "  all  about.  For 
Grasmere  was  then,  like  most  of  the  neighboring  dales, 
portioned  out  among  small  but  independent  peasant 
lairds,  whose  forefathers  had  for  ages  lived  and  died  on 
the  same  farms.  With  these  men  Wordsworth  and  his 
sister  lived  on  terms  of  kindliness  and  equal  hospitality. 
He  would  receive  them  to  tea  in  his  home,  or  would 
go  to  sup  in  theirs.  If  the  invitation  was  to  some 
homestead  in  a  distant  vale,  the  ladies  would  travel  in 
a  cart,  the  poet  walking  by  its  side.  Among  these 
men,  in  their  pastoral  republic,  the  life  was  one  of  not 
too  laborious  industry ;  the  manners  were  simple, 
manly,  and  severe.  The  statesmen  looked  after  the 
sheep,  grew  hay  on  their  own  land  in  the  valley,  and 


40  WORDSWORTH: 

each  could  turn  out  as  many  sheep  to  feed  on  the  fell 
or  common  (as  they  call  it)  during  the  summer  months, 
as  they  could  provide  hay  for  in  the  winter.  Their 
chief  source  of  income  was  the  wool  from  the  flock, 
and  this  not  sold  in  the  fleece,  hut  spun  into  thread  by 
the  wives  and  daughters.  These,  with  their  spinning- 
wheels,  were  in  high  esteem,  for  they  did  more  to 
maintain  the  house  than  the  spade  or  plough  of  the 
husbands.  Wordsworth  loved  this  manner  of  life,  not 
only  because  he  had  been  familiar  with  it  from  child- 
hood, but  also  because  he  knew  what  sterling  worth 
and  pure  domestic  virtues  sheltered  under  these  roofs. 
He  lived  to  see  it  rudely  broken  up.  Machinery  put 
out  the  spinning-wheel,  and  the  statesmen's  lands 
passed  for  the  most  part  into  other  hands. 

The  few  statesmen's  families  who  survived  down  to 
a  recent  time  in  and  around  Grasmere,  retained  an 
affectionate  and  reverent  remembrance  of  the  "  pawet," 
as  they  in  their  Westmoreland  dialect  called  him,  long 
after  he  had  left  them  for  Rydal  Mount.  Many  stories 
I  have  heard  them  tell  of  his  ways,  while  living  at  the 
Town-End;  how,  alone,  or  oftener  with  his  sister,  at 
night-fall,  when  other  people  were  going  to  bed,  he 
would  be  seen  setting  out  to  walk  to  Dunmail  Raise, 
or  climbing  that  outlying  ridge  of  Fairfield  which  over- 
hangs the  forest  side  of  Grasmere,  there  to  be  all  night 
long  till  near  the  breaking  of  the  day.  At  such  a  tune 
it  may  well  have  been,  when  on  those  heights  he  was 
alone  with  the  stars,  and  the  voices  of  the  mountain 
streams  were  coming  up  from  far  below,  that  the  "  Ode 
on  Mortality "  first  came  to  him.  When  in  their 
houses  strangers  have  read  aloud,  or  told  in  their  own 
words  some  of  his  shorter  poems  descriptive  of  incident 
and  character,  or  the  two  books  of  "  The  Excursion  " 
which  describe  the  tenants  of  the  churchyard  among 


THE  MAN  AND   TEE  POET.  41 

the  mountains,  I  have  heard  old  residenters  name  many 
of  the  persons  there  alluded  to,  and  go  on  to  give  more 
details  of  their  lives. 

The  first  months  at  Grasmere  were  so  industriously 
employed,  that  some  time  in  the  year  1800,  when  a 
second  edition  of  the  first  volume  of  "  Lyrical  Ballads  " 
was  being  reprinted,  he  added  to  it  a  new  volume  con- 
taining thirty-seven  new  pieces.  Among  these  were 
the  poems  already  mentioned  as  having  been  composed 
during  the  German  winter,  as  well  as  some  new  ones 
which  had  been  suggested  since  he  settled  at  Grasmere. 
Such  were  the  "  Idle  Shepherd  Boys,"  "  Poems  on  the 
Naming  of  Places,"  "The  Brothers,"  "Michael,"  all 
redolent  of  the  Westmoreland  fells.  These  two  vol- 
umes cannot  be  said  to  have  failed,  for  they  were  re- 
printed in  1802,  and  again  in  1805;  and  in  1806, 
Jeffrey,  even  when  inveighing  against  a  new  and  better 
volume  of  poems,  speaks  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  as 
"  unquestionably  popular."  I  shall  not,  however,  stay  to 
comment  on  their  contents  till  I  have  done  with  narra- 
tive. Only  a  few  facts  stand  out  prominently  from  the 
happy  and  industrious  tenor  of  the  life  at  Grasmere. 
In  1802,  that  Earl  of  Lonsdale,  who  to  the  last  refused 
to  pay  to  the  Wordsworths  their  due,  died,  and  was 
succeeded  by  a  better-minded  kinsman,  who  paid  to 
them  the  original  debt  of  £5,000  due  to  their  father, 
with  £3,500  of  interest.  This  was  divided  into  five 
shares,  of  which  two  went  to  the  poet  and  his  sister. 
This  addition  to  his  income  enabled  the  poet  to  take 
to  himself  a  wife,  his  cousin,  and  the  intimate  friend 
of  his  sister,  Mary  Hutchinson,  whom  he  had  long 
known  and  loved.  It  is  she  whom  he  describes  in  his 
exquisite  lines  — 

"  A  creature  not  too  bright  or  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food; 


42  WORDSWORTH: 

A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned, 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  and  command ; 
And  yet  a  spirit  still,  and  bright 
With  something  of  an  angel  light." 

They  lived  together  in  as  great  happiness  as  is  allowed 
to  human  beings,  till  the  poet  had  fulfilled  his  fourscore 
years,  when  she  survived  him  a  few  years  longer. 

In  the  August  of  1803,  Mrs.  Wordsworth  having 
been  kept  at  home  by  domestic  duties,  Wordsworth 
and  his  sister  set  out  from  Keswick  with  Coleridge  on 
their  memorable  tour  in  Scotland.  They  travelled 
great  part  of  the  way  on  foot,  up  Nithsdale,  and  so  on 
towards  the  Highlands.  Coleridge  turned  back  soon 
after  they  had  reached  Loch  Lomond,  being  either  lazy 
or  out  of  spirits.  Everywhere  as  they  trudged  along, 
they  saw  the  old  familiar  Highland  sights,  as  if  none 
had  ever  seen  them  before ;  and  wherever  they  moved 
among  the  mountains,  they  left  footprints  of  immortal 
beauty.  He  expressed  what  he  saw  in  verse,  she  hi 
prose,  and  it  is  hard  to  say  which  is  the  more  poetic. 
Of  all  that  has  been,  or  yet  may  be,  said  or  sung  about 
the  Highlands,  what  words  can  ever  equal  those  entries 
in  her  journal  ?  what  poems  can  ever  catch  the  soul 
of  things  like  the  "  Address  to  Kilchurn  Castle," 
« Glen-Almain,"  "Stepping  Westward,"  and  "The 
Solitary  Reaper  ? "  The  last  of  these,  perhaps  the 
most  perfect  of  Wordsworth's  poems,  must  have  been 
suggested  as  they  walked  somewhere  in  the  region 
about  Loch  Voil,  between  the  braes  of  Balquhidder 
and  Strathire.  What  was  the  name  of  her  who  sug- 
gested it,  and  where  is  she  now  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  But 
whether  she  be  still  alive  in  extremest  old  age,  or,  as 
is  far  more  likely,  long  since  laid  in  Balquhidder  kirk- 
yard  or  in  some  other,  in  that  poem  she  will  sing  on  for- 
ever in  eternal  youth,  to  delight  generations  yet  to  be. 


THE  MAN  AND    THE  POET.  43 

In  the  beginning  of  1805,  the  first  great  sorrow  fell 
on  Wordsworth's  home,  in  the  loss  of  his  brother,  Cap- 
tain Wordsworth.  He  was  leaving  England,  intend- 
ing to  make  one  more  voyage,  and  then  to  return  and 
live  with  his  sister  and  brother,  when,  by  the  careless- 
ness of  a  pilot,  his  ship  was  run  on  the  shambles  of  the 
Bill  of  Portland,  and  he  with  the  larger  part  of  his 
crew  went  down.  For  long  Wordsworth  was  almost 
inconsolable,  he  so  loved  and  honored  his  brother.  His 
letters  at  this  time,  and  his  poems  long  after,  are 
darkened  with  this  grief.  In  one  of  these  letters  this 
striking  thought  occurs :  "  Why  have  we  sympathies 
that  make  the  best  of  us  so  afraid  of  inflicting  pain  and 
sorrow,  which  yet  we  see  dealt  about  so  lavishly  by  the 
Supreme  Governor  ?  Why  should  our  notions  of  right 
towards  each  other,  and  to  all  sentient  beings  within 
our  influence,  differ  so  widely  from  what  appears  to  be 
his  notion  and  rule,  if  everything  were  to  end  here  ?  " 
Captain  Wordsworth  had  greatly  admired  his  brother's 
poetry,  but  saw  that  it  would  take  time  to  become  pop- 
ular, and  would  probably  never  be  lucrative.  So  he 
would  work  for  the  family  at  Town-End,  he  said,  and 
William  would  do  something  for  the  world.  "  This  is 
the  end  of  his  part  of  the  agreement,"  says  the  poet ; 
"  God  grant  me  life  and  strength  to  fulfill  mine  !  " 

In  1807,  Wordsworth  came  out  with  two  more  vol- 
umes of  poetry,  for  the  most  part  produced  at  Gras- 
mere.  He  was  now  in  his  thirty-seventh  year,  so  that 
these  volumes  may  be  said  to  close  the  spring-time  of 
his  genius,  and  to  be  its  consummate  flower.  Some  of 
his  after  works  may  have  equaled  these,  and  may  even 
show  an  increased  moral  depth  and  religious  tender- 
ness. But  there  is  about  the  best  t)f  the  Grasmere 
poems  an  ethereal  touch  of  ideality  which  he  perhaps 
never  afterwards  reached.  Besides  the  Scottish  poems 


44  WORDSWORTH: 

already  noticed,  there  were  the  earliest  installment  of 
sonnets,  some  of  them  the  best  he  ever  wrote,  as  that 
"  London  seen  from  Westminster  Bridge ;  "  "  It  is  a 
beauteous  evening,  calm  and  free  ; "  "  The  World  is  too 
much  with  us  ;  "  "  Toussaint  L'Ouverture  ;  "  "  Milton, 
thou  shouldst  be  living  at  this  hour ! " 

These  volumes  contain  also  "  The  Song  of  Brougham 
Castle  ;  "  "  Resolution  and  Independence  ;  "  the  poem 
to  the  Cuckoo,  beginning,  "  0  blithe  new-comer  ; " 
"  Elegiac  Stanzas  suggested  by  the  picture  of  Peele 
Castle  ; "  and  last,  and  chief  of  all,  the  "  Ode  on  Inti- 
mations of  Immortality."  The  three  last  named  espe- 
cially have  that  indescribable,  unapproachable  ideality, 
which  I  have  spoken  of  as  the  characteristic  of  his 
best  poems  at  this  time.  Indeed,  the  "  Ode  on  Immor- 
tality "  marks  the  highest  limit  which  the  tide  of  po- 
etic inspiration  has  reached  in  England  within  this  cen- 
tury, or  indeed  since  the  days  of  Milton.1 

As  Wordsworth's  outward  as  well  as  his  inward  his- 
tory has  been  traced  thus  far,  it  may  be  well  not  to 
take  leave  of  it  without  here  noting  the  few  facts  that 
yet  remain.  The  cottage  at  the  Town-End  of  Gras- 
mere  was  his  home  from  the  close  of  1799  till  the 
spring  of  1808.  This  was  the  time  when  his  inspira- 
tion was  at  flood-tide.  At  Town-End,  as  we  have 
seen, "  Michael,"  "  Resolution  and  Independence,"  "  The 
Cuckoo,"  "  The  Solitary  Reaper,"  and  the  other  memo- 
rials of  Scotland,  "The  Song  of  Brougham  Castle," 
"  Stanzas  on  Peele  Castle,"  and,  above  all,  the  immor- 
tal "  Ode,"  first  saw  the  light.  There,  too  most  of 

l  It  has  lately  been  suggested  that  Wordsworth  owed  the  first  hint  of 
this  great  ode  to  Henry  Vaughan's  poem  called  the  Retreat.  But  those 
who  have  observed  how  deep  down  in  Wordsworth's  nature  lay  that  sense 
of  the  mystery  and  ideality  of  childhood,  and  how  often  it  crops  out  in 
his  works,  will  be  slow  to  believe  that  he  had  to  go  to  any  extrinsic  source 
to  find  it 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  45 

"  The  Prelude "  was  written,  besides  many  smaller 
poems.  In  1808,  as  the  Town-End  cottage  had  grown 
too  small  for  his  increasing  family,  he  was  obliged  to 
move  to  Allan  Bank,  —  a  new  house  which  was  hardly 
finished,  on  the  top  of  a  knoll  to  the  west  of  Grasmere, 
overlooking  the  lake.  Here  he  remained  till  the  spring 
of  1811  ;  but  the  house  was  for  some  time  unfinished, 
and  the  chimneys  smoked,  and  to  this  his  biographer 
has  attributed,  what  he  thinks,  a  comparative  dearth  of 
production  during  these  three  years.  But  it  should  be 
remembered  that  it  was  probably  at  Allan  Bank  that 
the  greater  part  of  "  The  Excursion  "  was  composed, 
though  it  was  not  published  till  some  years  later. 
Coleridge  was  an  inmate  of  Wordsworth's  home  during 
the  earlier  part  of  the  Allan  Bank  residence.  In  the 
spring  of  1811,  Wordsworth  was  obliged  to  remove 
thence  to  the  Parsonage  of  Grasmere,  situated  between 
the  church  and  the  lake.  The  poet's  stay  here  was 
darkened  by  the  loss  of  two  of  his  little  children,  a  girl 
and  a  boy,  who  were  laid  side  by  side  in  the  same 
grave,  hard  by  in  Grasmere  churchyard.  A  small  blue 
stone  preserves  the  following  epitaph  written  by  the 
poet  over  his  boy  :  — 

"  Six  months  to  sis  years  added  he  remained 
Upon  this  sinful  earth,  by  sin  unstained : 
0  blessed  Lord  !  whose  mercy  then  removed 
A  Child  whom  every  eye  that  looked  on  loved  ; 
Support  us,  teach  us  calmly  to  resign 
What  we  possessed,  and  now  is  wholly  thine!  " 

Ibis  affliction,  which  at  the  Parsonage  was  rendered 
insupportable  by  the  continual  sight  of  the  two  graves, 
made  the  poet  and  his  family  glad  to  quit  the  vale  of 
Grasmere  for  a  new  home  at  Rydal  Mount,  which 
offered  itself  in  the  spring  of  1813.  This  was  their 
last  migration,  and  there  the  poet  and  his  wife  lived 


46  WORDSWORTH: 

till,  many  years  after,  they  were  carried  back  to  join 
their  children  in  the  churchyard  of  Grasmere. 

Rydal  Mount  saw  a  good  deal  of  poetry  composed, 
but  not  much  in  the  poet's  finest  vein.  It  witnessed, 
however,  many  other  good  things :  an  easy  competence 
brought  to  the  poet's  door  in  the  shape  of  a  distributor- 
ship of  stamps,  —  the  steady  growth  of  his  reputation 
from  comparative  obscurity  till  he  took  his  acknowl- 
edged place  beside  the  chief  kings  of  English  song,  — 
thirty-seven  years  of  contented  and  beneficent  life, 
rounded  by  a  peaceful  close.  Besides  the  two  children 
lost  in  1812,  the  poet's  family  consisted  of  a  daughter 
and  two  sons.  The  daughter,  "  Dora,"  afterwards  Mrs. 
Quillinan,  died  before  her  father ;  the  two  sons  still 
survive.  These  facts  are  not  irrelevant,  but  essential 
ones  to  the  understanding  of  Wordsworth.  Few  poets 
have  been  by  nature  so  fitted  for  domestic  happiness, 
and  fewer  still  have  been  blessed  with  so  abundant  a 
share  of  it.  The  strength  and  purity  of  his  home 
affections,  so  deep  and  undisturbed,  entered  into  all  that 
he  thought  and  sang.  Herein  may  be  said  to  have 
lain  the  heart  of  "  central  peace  "  that  sustained  the 
whole  fabric  of  his  life  and  poetry. 

The  account  I  have  given  of  the  growth  of  Words- 
worth's mind  from  childhood  to  maturity  has  been  ex- 
tracted mainly  from  "  The  Prelude,"  and  is  meant  to 
throw  light  on  the  aim  and  spirit  of  his  poetry.  If  a 
discriminating  mental  history  of  the  poet  could  be  given, 
followed  by  an  edition  of  his  works,  in  which  the  sev- 
eral poems  were  arranged,  not  in  the  present  arbitrary 
manner,  but  chronologically  according  to  the  date  of 
their  composition,  this  would  form  the  best  of  all  com- 
mentaries. There  were  three  epochs  in  Wordsworth'8 
poetry,  though  these  shade  so  insensibly  the  one  into 
the  other,  that  any  attempt  exactly  to  define  them 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  POET.  47 

must  be  somewhat  arbitrary.  What  I  have  already 
called  the  spring-time  of  his  genius  would  reach  from 
his  first  settling  at  Racedown,  or  at  any  rate  his  going 
to  Alfoxden  in  1797,  till  his  leaving  Grasmere  Town- 
End  in  1808.  The  second  epoch,  or  full  midsummer 
of  his  poetry,  would  include  his  time  at  Allan  Bank 
and  his  first  years  at  Rydal  Mount,  as  far  as  1818  or 
1820.  This  was  the  time  when  "  The  Excursion," 
"  Laodamia,"  "  Dion,"  and  the  "  Duddon  Sonnets  "  were 
composed.  The  third  epoch,  or  the  sober  autumn, 
reaching  from  about  1820  till  he  ceased  from  the  work 
of  composition,  is  the  time  of  the  ecclesiastical  and  other 
sonnets,  of  "  Yarrow  Revisited,"  and  the  Scottish  poems 
of  1833  ;  and  lastly,  of  the  memorials  of  his  Italian 
tour  in  1837. 

But  to  return  to  the  poems  of-  the  first  epoch.  It 
was  the  two  volumes  of  1807,  those  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  contained  the  very  prime  ore  of  his  genius,  that 
called  forth  Jeffrey's  well-known  vituperation.  The 
unfairness  of  that  review  lay  in  this,  that  the  weak 
parts  of  the  book  were  brought  out  in  strong  relief, 
while  the  best  were  thrown  as  far  as  possible  into  the 
background.  Over  "  the  unfortunate  Alice  Fell,"  as  it 
has  been  called,  the  critic  makes  himself  merry,  and  by 
extracting  a  number  of  homely  matter-of-fact  lines  and 
stanzas,  which  occur  here  and  there  in  the  other  poems, 
contrived  to  make  Wordsworth's  name  a  by-word  for 
many  a  day  for  bathos  and  puerility.  But  his  verdict 
on  the  very  best  —  those  which  all  the  world  has  since 
acknowledged  —  prove  that  to  the  Edinburgh  lawgiver 
on  matters  of  taste,  poetic  originality  was  as  a  picture 
to  a  blind  man's  eye.  "  Yarrow  Un visited "  he  calls 
"a  very  tedious,  affected  performance."  After  quoting 
from  and  describing  "  Resolution  and  Independence," 
he  thus  concludes  :  "  We  defy  the  bitterest  enemy  of 


48  WORDSWORTH: 

Mr.  Wordsworth  to  produce  anything  at  all  parallel  to 
this  from  any  collection  of  English  poetry,  or  even  from 
the  specimens  of  his  friend  Mr.  Southey."  In  the  same 
strain  he  quotes  from  the  "  Ode  to  the  Cuckoo,"  in 
which  he  thinks  that  the  author,  striving  after  force  and 
originality,  produces  nothing  but  absurdity.  Lastly, 
the  "  Ode  on  Immortality  "  is  "  the  most  illegible  and 
unintelligible  part  of  the  publication."  The  only  parts 
of  the  two  volumes  quoted  with  approbation  are  the 
Brougham  song  and  three  sonnets.  These  facts  I  have 
mentioned,  not  from  a  wish  to  disinter  long  since  buried 
strifes,  but  because  allusion  to  them  is  necessary  to 
bring  out  the  true  force  of  Wordsworth  both  as  a  man 
and  a  poet.  The  result  of  this  review  was  to  stop  the 
sale  of  his  poems  for  a  number  of  years.  But  whoever 
else  might  be  snuffed  out  by  a  severe  review,  Words- 
worth could  not  be  so  silenced.  To  a  friend  who  wrote 
condoling  with  him  on  the  severity  of  the  criticism  — 
and  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  those  days  the  ver- 
dict of  the  "  Edinburgh  "  was  all  but  omnipotent  —  he 
replied :  "  Trouble  not  yourself  upon  their  present  re- 
ception ;  of  what  moment  is  that  compared  with  what  I 
trust  is  their  destiny  !  —  to  console  the  afflicted  ;  to  add 
sunshine  to  daylight,  by  making  the  happy  happier  ;  to 
teach  the  young  and  gracious  of  every  age  to  see,  to 
think,  and  feel,  and,  therefore,  to  become  more  actively 
and  securely  virtuous ;  this  is  their  office,  which  I  trust 
they  will  faithfully  perform,  long  after  we  (that  is,  all 
that  is  mortal  of  us)  are  mouldering  in  our  graves." 
Again :  "  I  doubt  not  that  you  will  share  with  me  an 
invincible  confidence  that  my  writings  (and  among  them 
these  little  poems)  will  cooperate  with  the  benign 
tendencies  in  human  nature  and  society,  wherever 
found ;  and  that  they  will,  in  their  degree,  be  efficacious 
in  making  men  wiser,  better,  and  happier."  This  Ian- 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  49 

guage  is  not  vanity,  but  the  calm  confidence  of  a  man 
who  feels  the  rock  under  his  feet,  knows  that  he  is  in 
harmony  with  the  everlasting  truth  of  things.  In  the 
issue  between  the  critic  and  the  poet,  the  world,  long 
neutral,  or  rather  adverse  to  the  latter,  at  length  sided 
with  him,  and  will  continue  permanently  to  do  so. 
Before  his  death  he  saw  posthumous  fame  secured  to 
him ;  but  it  is  instructive  to  note  what  a  change  thirty 
years  had  made  in  his  feeling  regarding  it.  In  1837, 
he  thus  writes  to  another  correspondent :  "  I  am  stand- 
ing on  the  brink  of  that  vast  ocean  I  must  sail  so  soon  ; 
I  must  speedily  lose  sight  of  the  shore ;  and  I  could 
not  once  have  conceived  how  little  I  now  am  troubled 
by  the  thought  of  how  long  or  how  short  a  time  they 
who  remain  on  that  shore  may  have  sight  of  me." 

What  is  there  in  these  poems  which  there  is  not  in 
any  other  ?  What  is  their  peculiar  virtue  ?  To  seize 
and  set  forth  in  words  the  heart  of  anything  with 
which  we  have  been  long  familiar  is  not  easy ;  never- 
theless something  of  this  kind  must,  however  imper- 
fectly, be  attempted.  In  the  opening  of  "The  Pre- 
lude," Wordsworth  tells  us  that  when  he  first  seriously 
thought  of  being  a  poet,  he  looked  into  himself  to  see 
how  he  was  fitted  for  the  work,  and  seemed  to  find 
there  "  that  first  great  gift,  the  vital  soul."  In  this 
self-estimate  he  did  not  err.  The  vital  soul,  it  is  a 
great  gift,  which,  if  ever  it  dwelt  in  man,  dwelt  in 
Wordsworth.  Not  the  intellect  merely,  nor  the  heart, 
nor  the  imagination,  nor  the  conscience,  nor  any  of 
these  alone,  but  all  of  them  condensed  into  one,  and 
moving  all  together.  In  virtue  of  this  vital  soul, 
whatever  he  did  see  he  saw  to  the  very  core.  He  did 
not  fumble  with  the  outside  or  the  accidents  of  the 
thing,  but  his  eye  went  at  once  to  the  quick,  —  rested 
4 


50  WORDSWORTH: 

on  the  essential  life  of  it.  He  saw  what  was  there,  but 
had  escaped  all  other  eyes.  He  did  not  import  into  the 
outward  world  transient  fancies  or  feelings  of  his  own, 
"  the  pathetic  fallacy,"  as  it  has  been  named ;  but  he 
saw  it,  as  it  exists  in  itself,  or  perhaps  rather  as  it  exists 
in  its  permanent  moral  relations  to  the  human  spirit. 

Again,  this  soul  within  him  did  not  work  with  effort ; 
no  paiuful  groping  or  grasping.  It  was  as  vital  in  its 
respectivity  as  in  its  active  energy.  It  could  lie  long 
in  a  "  wise  passiveness,"  drawing  the  things  of  earth 
and  sky  and  of  human  life  into  itself,  as  the  calm,  clear 
lake  does  the  imagery  of  the  surrounding  hills  and 
overhanging  sky. 

"  Think  not,  'mid  all  this  mighty  sum 

Of  things  forever  speaking, 
That  nothing  in  itself  will  come, 
But  we  must  still  be  seeking." 

Those  early  spring  poems  at  Alfoxden,  from  which 
these  lines  are  taken,  specially  express  what  I  mean, 
—  the  wonderful  interchange  that  went  on  between 
him  and  all  the  things  about  him,  they  flowing  into 
him,  he  flowing  out  into  them.  His  soul  attracted 
them  to  itself,  as  a  mountain-top  draws  the  clouds,  and 
at  their  touch  woke  up  to  feel  its  kinship  with  the 
mysterious  life  that  is  in  all  nature,  and  in  each  sepa- 
rate object  of  nature.  This  is  the  cardinal  work  of  the 
imagination,  to  possess  itself  of  the  life  of  whatever 
thing  it  deals  with.  In  the  extent  to  which  he  did 
this,  and  the  truthfulness  with  which  he  did  it,  lies 
Wordsworth's  supreme  power. 

Hence  one  may  observe  that  all  genuine  imagina- 
tion is  essentially  truthful,  and  the  purer  it  is,  the 
more  truthful.  The  reports  it  brings  in,  so  far  from 
being  mere  fancies,  are  the  finest,  most  hidden  truths. 
In  "Wordsworth,  the  higher  his  inspiration  rises,  the 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  51 

more  penetrating  is  his  truthfulness.  What  may  be 
the  relation  between  the  truths  which  imagination  re- 
veals, and  those  which  are  the  result  of  scientific  dis- 
covery, who  shall  determine  ?  —  it  would  be  a  fine 
inquiry  for  one  who  can  to  work  at ;  but  every  one 
must  feel  that  — 

"  The  moon  doth  with  delight 
Look  round  her  when  the  heavens  are  bare," 

gives  the  essence  of  a  clear  moonlight  sky  more  truth- 
fully in  its  relation  to  the  human  spirit,  than  any  mere 
meteorologist  can  do.  What  words,  poetic  or  scientific, 
will  ever  render  the  mountain  stillness  like  these  few 
plain  ones  ?  — 

"  The  sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills ;  " 

or  the  impression  made  by  a  solitary  western  peak, 
like  — 

"  There  is  an  eminence  of  these  our  hills, 
The  last  that  parleys  with  the  setting  sun." 

It  is  this  rendering  of  the  inner  truth  of  things  which 
Mr.  Arnold  has  happily  called  "  the  interpretative 
power  of  poetry."  This  must  be  that  which  Words- 
worth himself  means  when,  in  his  preface,  he  says  that 
"  poetry  is  the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge  ; 
it  is  the  impassioned  expression  which  is  in  the  coun- 
tenance of  all  science."  And  it  is  "  the  vital  soul " 
in  the  poet  which  penetrates  into  this,  and  reads  it  off 
for  other  men.  This,  too,  is  what  is  meant  when  we 
find  it  said  in  "  The  Prelude  "  that  imagination,  in  its 
highest  use,  is  but  another  name  for  "  absolute  power, 
clearest  insight,  reason  in  her  most  exalted  mood ; " 
and  that  this  imagination,  exercised  on  outward  nature 
and  on  human  life,  is  the  parent  of  love,  or  feeling 
intellect.  This  language  will,  no  doubt,  to  some  sound 


52  WORDSWORTH: 

mystical.  But  it  is  the  language  of  one  who  possessed 
that  which  he  spoke  of  in  larger  mass,  and  of  finer 
quality,  than  any  Englishman  since  Shakespeare  and 
Milton.  It  is  the  presence  of  this  power  in  Words- 
worth which  is  the  source  of  that  indescribable  charm 
which  many  have  felt  in  his  poetry,  and  have  found  in 
none  other  before  or  since.  They  were  brought  by  it 
for  a  moment  soul  to  soul  with  truth,  caught,  as  they 
read,  a  glimpse  into  the  life  of  things  such  as  no  other 
poet  of  these  days  has  given  them.  This  clearness  of 
vision,  rare  at  all  times,  becomes  much  rarer  as  the 
ages  go  on.  The  naming  era,  when  men  could  still 
give  names  to  things,  is  long  past,  arid  with  disuse  the 
faculty  has  died  out.  Under  heaps  of  words,  which  we 
receive  without  effort,  dead  metaphors,  fossils  of  extinct 
poetic  acts,  the  moulding  power  of  imagination  lies 
buried.  And  not  only  language  has  got  stiff  and  hard- 
ened, but  society  has  become  complicated  in  a  thousand 
ways;  phrases,  custom,  conventionality,  doubts,  dis- 
putes, lie  many  layers  thick  above  every  new-born 
soul.  The  revolutionary  age  into  which  Wordsworth 
was  born  may  have  made  some  rents  in  these,  and  let 
the  basement  of  truth  be  here  and  there  seen  through. 
And  yet,  even  with  this  help,  what  power  must  have 
dwelt  in  that  quiet  eye  to  put  all  these  obstructions 
aside,  and  see  things  anew  for  itself,  as  if  no  one  had 
ever  looked  on  them  before  ! 

This  power  manifests  itself  in  Wordsworth  especially 
in  two  directions,  as  it  is  turned  on  nature,  and  as  it  is 
turned  on  man.  Let  us,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  ex- 
amine them  separately,  though,  in  reality,  they  often 
blend.  Between  Wordsworth^  imagination,  however, 
as  it  works  in  the  one  direction  and  in  the  other,  there 
is  this  difference.  In  dealing  with  nature,  it  has  no 
limit :  it  is  as  wide  as  the  world  ;  as  much  at  home 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  53 

when  gazing  on  the  little  celandine,  as  when  moving 
with  the  vast  elemental  forces  of  earth  and  heaven. 
In  human  life  and  character  his  range  is  narrowsr, 
whether  these  limitations  came  from  within,  or  were 
self-imposed.  His  sympathies  embrace  by  no  means 
all  human  things,  but  within  the  range  which  they  do 
embrace,  his  eye  is  no  less  penetrating  and  true. 
About  nature,  it  has  become  so  much  the  fashion  to 
rave,  there  has  been  so  much  counterfeit  enthusiasm, 
that  it  is  a  subject  one  almost  dreads  speaking  of.  But 
whatever  it  may  be  to  most  men,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  free  nature,  mountain  solitudes,  were  as  essential 
to  Wordsworth's  heart,  as  the  air  to  his  lungs.  About 
this,  nothing  he  has  said  goes  beyond  the  simple  truth. 
Of  his  manner  of  dealing  with  it  in  his  poetry,  the  fol- 
lowing things  may  be  noted  :  — 

First,  When  he  would  place  some  particular  land- 
scape before  the  reader,  he  does  not  heap  up  an  ex- 
haustive enumeration  of  details.  Only  one  or  two  of 
the  most  essential  features  faithfully  given,  and  then 
from  these  he  passes  at  once  to  the  sentiment,  the 
genius  of  the  place,  that  which  gives  it  individuality, 
and  makes  it  this  and  no  other  place.  Numerous  in- 
stances of  the  way  in  which  he  seizes  the  inner  spirit 
of  a  place  and  utters  it,  will  occur  to  every  reader.  To 
give  one  out  of  many :  after  sketching  briefly  the  out- 
ward appearance  of  the  four  fraternal  yew-trees  of  Bor- 
rowdale,  who  else  could  have  condensed  the  total 
impressions  into  such  lines  as  these,  so  intensely  imag- 
in'ative,  so  profoundly  true  !  — 

"  Beneath  whose  sable  roof 
Of  boughs,  as  if  for  festal  purpose,  decked 
With  unrejoicing  berries  —  ghostly  shapes 
May  meet  at  noontide ;  Fear  and  trembling  Hope, 
Silence  and  Foresight ;  Death  the  Skeleton, 
And  Time  the  Shadow;  there  to  celebrate, 


54  WORDSWORTH: 

As  in  a  natural  temple,  scattered  o'er 
With  altars  undisturbed  of  mossy  stone, 
United  worship ;  or  in  mute  repose 
To  lie  and  listen  to  the  mountain  flood, 
Murmuring  from  Glaramara's  inmost  caves." 

When  in  this  passage,  or  in  that  wonderful  poem, 
u  "What,  are  you  stepping  westward  ?  "  and  many  more, 
we  find  the  poet  spiritualizing  so  powerfully  the  famil- 
iar appearances  and  common  facts  of  earth,  adding,  as 
he  himself  says,  — 

"  The  gleam, 

The  light  that  never  was,  on  sea  or  land, 
The  consecration,  and  the  poet's  dream," 

one  is  tempted  to  ask,  Is  this  true,  is  the  light  real,  or 
only  fantastic?  Now  in  this,  I  conceive,  lies  Words- 
worth's transcendent  power,  that  the  ideal  light  he 
sheds  is  a  true  light,  and  the  more  ideal  it  is,  the  more 
true.  Poets,  all  but  the  greatest,  are  apt  to  adorn 
things  with  fantastic  or  individual  hues,  to  suffuse 
them  with  their  own  temporary  emotions,  which  Mr. 
Ruskin  has  called  the  "  pathetic  fallacy."  The  ideal 
light  which  Wordsworth  sheds  does  not  so,  but  brings 
out  only  more  vividly  the  real  heart  of  nature,1  the  in- 

l  This  expression  has  been  objected  to  as  vague  or  meaningless.  It  is 
certainly  a  condensed  form  of  words,  but  it  aims  at  expressing  a  real 
though  subtle  truth.  If  asked  to  explain  it,  I  should  do  so  in  this  way : 
Each  scene  in  nature  has  in  it  a  power  of  awakening  in  every  beholder 
of  sensibility,  an  impression  peculiar  to  itself,  such  as  no  other  scene  can 
exactly  call  up.  This  may  be  called  the  "  heart  "  or  "  character  "  of  that 
scene.  It  is  quite  analogous  to,  if  somewhat  vaguer  than,  the  particular 
impression  produced  upon  us  by  the  presence  of  each  individual  man. 
Now  the  aggregate  of  the  impressions  produced  by  many  scenes  in  nature, 
or  rather  the  power  in  nature  on  a  large  scale  of  producing  such  impres- 
sions on  us,  is  what,  for  want  of  another  name,  I  have  called  the 
"  heart "  of  nature.  The  test  of  what  is  the  real  heart  or  character  of 
any  scene  is  to  be  ascertained  by  the  experience  of  what  the  largest  num- 
ber of  men  of  the  truest  poetic  sensibility  feel  in  the  presence  of  that 
scene.  What  it  is  in  nature  which  produces  these  impressions  on  human 
imaginations  I  do  not  undertake  to  say.  But  that  one  cannot  explain 
the  cause  or  mode  of  operation,  is  no  reason  why  one  should  not  notice 
and  name  the  fact. 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  55 

most  feeling,  which  is  really  there,  and  is  recognized 
by  Wordsworth's  eye  in  virtue  of  the  kinship  between 
nature  and  his  soul.  If  it  be  asked  How  is  this  ?  I  can 
but  reply,  that  there  is  a  wonderful  and  mysterious 
adaptation  between  the  external  world  and  the  human 
soul,  the  one  answering  to  the  other  in  ways  not  yet 
explained  by  any  philosopher. 

Secondly,  It  is  perhaps  but  turning  to  another  side 
of  the  same  quality  to  note  what  a  base  of  natural, 
rather  than  philosophical  idealism  lay  at  the  bottom  of 
the  eye  which  Wordsworth  turned  on  nature.  Whereas 
to  most  men  the  material  world  is  a  heavy,  gross,  dead 
mass,  earth  a  ball  of  black  mud,  painted  here  and  there 
with  some  color,  Wordsworth  felt  it  to  be  a  living, 
breathing  power,  not  dead,  but  full  of  strange  life  ;  his 
eye  almost  saw  into  it,  as  if  it  were  transparent  So 
strongly  did  this  feeling  possess  him,  that  in  childhood 
he  was  a  complete  idealist  Speaking  of  himself  at 
that  age,  he  says,  "  I  was  often  unable  to  think  of  ex- 
ternal things  as  having  external  existence,  and  I  com- 
muned with  all  I  saw  as  something,  not  apart  from,  but 
inherent  in  my  own  immaterial  nature.  Many  times 
while  going  to  school  have  I  grasped  at  a  wall  or  tree  to 
recall  myself  from  the  abyss  of  idealism  to  the  reality. 
At  that  tune  I  was  afraid  of  such  processes.  In  later 
periods  of  life  I  have  deplored,  as  we  have  all  reason  to 
do,  a  subjugation  of  an  opposite  character,  and  have 
rejoiced  over  these  remembrances."  Here  is  idealism, 
far  beyond  that  of  Berkeley  or  any  other  philosopher, 
engendered  not  by  subtle  arguments  of  metaphysics,  but 
born  from  within  by  sheer  force  of  soul,  before  which 
the  solid  mass  of  earth  is  fused  and  unsubstantialized. 
Out  of  moods  like  these,  or  rather  the  remembrance  of 
them,  are  projected  some  of  his  most  ideal  lights,  such 
as  form  the  charm  of  his  finest  poems,  like  the  lines  to 


56  WORDSWORTH: 

the  Cuckoo,  and  the  "  Ode  on  Immortality."  Hence 
came  the  — 

"  Obstinate  questionings, 
Of  sense  and  outward  things, 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishings," 

which  he  looked  back  to  with  thankful  joy  in  mature 
manhood.  With  these  abstract  and  visionary  feelings 
there  blended  more  tender  human  remembrances  of 
that  early  time,  making  together  a  beautiful  light  of 
morning  about  his  after  days,  and  touching  even  the 
common  things  of  life  with  an  affecting,  tender  so- 
lemnity. 

Thirdly,  'With  this  spiritualizing  power  of  soul 
Wordsworth  combined  another  faculty,  which  might 
seem  the  most  opposed  to  it,  —  wonderful  keenness 
and  faithfulness  of  eye  for  the  minutest  facts  of  the 
outward  world.  Seldom  in  his  library,  much  in  the 
open  air,  at  all  hours,  in  all  seasons,  from  childhood 
to  old  age,  his  watchful  observant  eye  had  stored  his 
mind  with  all  the  varied  and  ever-changing  aspects 
of  nature.  His  imagination  was  a  treasure-house 
whence  he  drew  forth  things  new  and  old,  the  old  as 
fresh  as  if  new.  No  modern  poet  has  recorded  so 
large  and  so  varied  a  number  of  natural  facts  and 
appearances,  which  had  never  before  been  set  down 
in  books.  And  these  he  brings  forth,  not  as  if  he 
had  noted  and  carefully  photographed  them,  to  be 
reproduced  whenever  an  occasion  offered,  but  as  famil- 
iar knowledge  that  had  come  to  him  unawares,  and 
recurred  with  the  naturalness  of  an  instinct.  Many 
no  doubt  had  seen  before,  but  who  before  him  had  so 
described  the  hare  ?  — 

"  The  grass  is  bright  with  raindrops ;  on  the  moors 
The  hare  is  running  races  in  her  mirth ; 
And  with  her  feet  she  from  the  plashy  earth 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  57 

Raises  a  mist,  that,  glittering  in  the  sun, 

Runs  with  her  all  the  way,  wherever  she  doth  run." 

Or  again,  who  else  would  have  noted  the  effect  of 
a  leaping  trout,  or  of  a  croaking  raven,  in  bringing  out 
the  solitariness  of  a  mountain  tarn  ?  — 

"  There  sometimes  doth  a  leaping  fish 

Send  through  the  tarn  a  lonely  cheer; 
The  crags  repeat  the  raven's  croak 
In  symphony  austere." 

Or  again,  in  the  calm  bright  evening  after  a  stormy 
day  — 

"  Loud  is  the  Vale !  the  voice  is  up 

With  which  she  speaks  when  storms  are  gone, 
A  mighty  unison  of  streams ! 
Of  all  her  voices,  one ! 

"  Loud  is  the  Vale !  this  inland  depth 

In  peace  is  roaring  like  the  sea; 
Yon  star  upon  the  mountain -top 
Is  listening  quietly." 

Who  but  Wordsworth  would  have  set  off  the  uproar 
of  the  vale  by  the  stillness  of  the  star  on  the  mountain 
head  ?  Here,  in  passing,  I  may  note  the  strange 
power  there  is  in  his  simple  prepositions.  The  star 
is  upon  the  mountain-top ;  the  silence  is  in  the  starry 
sky ;  the  sleep  is  among  the  hills  ;  "  the  gentleness 
of  heaven  is  on  the  sea,"  not  "  broods  o'er,"  as  the 
later  editions  have  it.  This  double  gift  of  soul  and 
eye,  highest  ideality  and  most  literal  realism  combined, 
have  made  him  of  all  modern  poets  nature's  most  un- 
erring interpreter.1 

Fourthly,  Hence  it  comes  that  all  the  moods  and 
outgoings  of  nature  are  alike  open  to  him;  every  kind 

1  No  one,  that  I  know,  has  yet  laid  his  finger  on  a  single  mistake 
made  by  Wordsworth  with  regard  to  any  appearance  of  nature,  or  fact 
in  natural  history,  though  keen  observers  have  done  this  in  the  case  of 
both  Walter  Scott  and  Burns. 


58  WORDSWORTH: 

of  country  renders  up  to  him  its  secret.  He  is  alike 
true,  whether  in  describing  the  boundless  flats  of  Salis- 
bury Plain,  combs  and  dells  of  western  Somersetshire, 
fells  and  lakes  of  native  Cumberland,  Yorkshire  moors 
and  dales,  wilder  glens  of  our  own  Highlands,  or  the 
pastoral  quiet  of  the  Border  hills.  Who  save  him 
c^uld  have  gathered  up  the  whole  feeling  of  Yarrow 
into  that  consummate  stanza,  "  Meek  loveliness,"  etc., 
etc.? 

If  there  is  preeminence  in  any  one  department,  it 
is  in  the  interpretation  of  his  own  mountains.  This 
is  so  altogether  adequate  and  profound,  that  it  has 
often  seemed  as  if  those  dumb  old  solitudes  had,  after 
slumbering  since  the  beginning  of  time,  at  last  waked 
to  consciousness  in  him,  and  uttered  their  inmost  heart 
through  his  voice.  No  other  mountains  have  ever 
had  their  soul  so  perfectly  expressed.  Philosophers 
have  dreamed  that  nature  and  the  human  soul  are  the 
two  limbs  of  a  double-clefted  tree,  springing  from  and 
united  in  one  root ;  that  nature  is  unconscious  soul, 
and  the  soul  is  nature  become  conscious  of  itself. 
Some  such  view  as  this,  if  it  were  true,  might  account 
for  the  marvelous  sympathy  there  is  between  Words- 
worth's poetry  and  the  spirit  that  is  in  his  own  moun- 
tains, and  for  his  power  of  rendering  their  mute  being 
into  his  solemn  melodies. 

But  it  is  now  time  to  look  at  that  other  side  of 
things  in  which  his  vitality  of  imagination  is  seen. 
His  meditative  eye  penetrates  not  less  deep  when 
turned  on  the  heart  and  character  of  man,  than  when 
it  contemplates  the  face  of  nature.  It  has,  however, 
been  already  noted,  that  while  in  the  latter  depart- 
ment his  range  is  limitless,  in  the  former  it  is  not 
only  restricted,  but  restricted  within  very  marked  and 
definite  bounds.  For  man  as  he  is  found  in  cities, 


THE  MAX  AND   THE  POET.  59 

or  as  he  appears  in  the  complex  conditions  of  advanced 
civilization,  Wordsworth  cares  little  ;  he  turns  his  back 
on  the  streets,  the  drawing-rooms,  the  mart,  and  the 
'change,  but  lovingly  enters  the  cottage  and  the  farm, 
and  walks  with  the  shepherd  on  his  hills,  or  the  va- 
grant on  lonely  roads.  The  choice  of  his  characters 
from  humble  and  rustic  life  was  caused  partly  by  the 
original  make  of  his  nature,  partly  from  his  early 
training,  which  made  him  more  at  home  with  these 
than  with  artificial  man,  partly  also  from  that  repub- 
lican fervor  which  he  imbibed  in  his  opening  manhood. 
He  believed  that  in  country  people  what  is  permanent 
in  human  nature,  the  essential  feelings  and  passions 
of  mankind,  exist  in  greater  simplicity  and  strength. 
Their  manners,  he  thought,  spring  more  directly  from 
such  feeling,  and  more  faithfully  express  them.  Their 
lives  and  occupations  too  are  "  with  grandeur  circum- 
fused."  Thus  they  are  invested  with  a  glory,  beyond 
others,  from  the  background  of  wild  and  beautiful  na- 
ture against  -which  they  are  seen.  These  are  the  rea- 
sons he  gives  for  selecting  his  subjects  from  humble 
life,  and  within  this  range  he,  for  the  most  part,  con- 
fines himself.  There  is  still  another  limitation.  Even 
in  these  characters  he  is  not  so  much  at  home  in  deal- 
ing with  their  trivial  outside  appearance,  or  little 
laughable  peculiarities  of  manner  or  costume.  He  has 
small  caring  for  these  things,  and  when  he  sets  to  de- 
scribe them  he  often  fails,  as  in  the  "  Idiot  Boy  "  per- 
haps, and  in  "  Goody  Blake."  A  few  touches  of  real 
humor  would  have  wonderfully  relieved  these  person- 
ages, but  this  Wordsworth  has  not  to  give.  He  can- 
not, as  Burns  often  does,  exhibit  his  humble  characters 
dramatically,  does  not  laugh  and  sing,  much  less  drink, 
with  his  peasants ;  he  is  not  quite  one  of  themselves, 
sharing  their  thoughts,  and  having  no  other  and  higher 


80  WORDSWORTH: 

thoughts.  What  he  sets  himself  to  portray  is  their 
serious  feelings,  the  deep  things  of  their  souls,  that  in 
which  the  peasant  and  the  peer  are  one,  and  in  which, 
as  Wordsworth  thinks,  the  advantage  may  often  lie 
with  the  former.  He  has,  as  Coleridge  has  said,  "deep 
sympathy  with  man  as  man  ;  but  it  is  the  sympathy 
of  a  contemplator,  rather  than  a  fellow-sufferer  or  co- 
mate ;  but  of  a  contemplator  from  whose  view  no  dif- 
ference of  rank  conceals  the  sameness  of  nature  ;  no 
injuries  of  time  and  weather,  of  toil,  or  even  of  igno- 
rance, wholly  disguise  the  human  face  divine."  In 
fact  it  is  the  moral  and  spiritual  part  of  man  which 
he  most  sees  and  feels,  and  other  things  are  interesting 
chiefly  as  they  affect  this.  His  thoughts  dwell  in  — 

"  The  depth,  and  not  the  tumult  of  the  soul," 

not  on  the  surface  manners,  nor  on  the  effervescent  and 
transitory  emotions,  but  on  those  which  are  steadfast 
and  forever.  It  is  in  virtue  of  his  deep  insight  into 
these,  that  common  incidents  assume  for  him  an  impor- 
tance and  interest  which  to  less  reflective  men  has 
seemed  exaggerated  or  sometimes  even  ludicrous.  The 
reflections,  however,  which  they  awake  in  him  are  not 
only  true  and  deep,  but  they  are  such  as  add  new 
dignity  or  tenderness  to  human  life.  A  frail  old  man 
thanked  him  fervently  for  cutting  through  for  him  at  a 
blow  an  old  root,  which  he  had  long  been  haggling  at 
in  vain.  The  tears  in  the  old  man's  eyes  drew  out 
from  Wordsworth  this  reflection  — 

"  I've  heard  of  hearts  unkind,  kind  deeds 

With  coldness  still  returning; 
Alas !  the  gratitude  of  men 

Hath  oftener  left  me  mourning." 

In  setting  forth  such  characters  as  The  Brothers, 
Michael,  the  Cumberland  Beggar,  etc.,  etc.  (though  in 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  61 

the  last  of  these  there  is  somewhat  too  much  moraliz- 
ing), he  gives  them  not  only  as  common  acquaintance* 
see  them,  or  as  they  appear  to  themselves ;  this  he 
does,  but  something  more.  He  lets  us  see  them  in 
their  relations  to  those  unseen  laws  of  the  moral  world, 
of  which  they  themselves  may  be  unaware,  but  which 
they  suggest  to  the  inspired  insight  of  the  poet.  And 
in  this  way  the  emotions  called  forth  by  the  sight  of 
suffering  do  not  end  in  mere  emotion,  but  strike  into  a 
more  enduring,  that  is,  a  moral  ground,  and  so  are 
idealized  and  relieved.  This  moral  vision  has  a 
wonderful  power  to  elevate,  often  to  solemnize,  things, 
the  lowliest  and  most  familiar.  It  has  been  said  that 
Burns  has  caused  many  an  eye  to  look  on  the  poorest 
thatched  cottage  of  the  Scottish  peasantry  with  a  feel- 
ing which,  but  for  Burns,  the  beholder  had  never 
known.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Wordsworth,  with  a 
difference.  He  has  revealed,  in  the  homeliest  aspects 
of  humble  life,  a  beauty  and  worth  not  recognized  be- 
fore, or  long  forgotten.  He  has  opened  for  men  new 
sources  of  interest  in  their  kind,  not  only  in  shepherds 
and  peasants,  but  in  tattered  beggars,  and  gypsies,  and 
wayworn  tramps. 

Much  stuff  has  been  talked  and  written  about  Words- 
worth being  a  merely  subjective  poet.  Critics  had 
good  need  to  be  sure  they  were  right  before  they  char- 
acterize great  poets  by  such  vague,  abstract  words ;  for 
they  quickly  get  into  the  minds  of  the  reading  public, 
and  stick  there,  and  do  much  mischief.  True  it  is  that 
Wordsworth  has  read  his  own  soul,  not  that  which  was 
accidental  or  peculiar  in  him,  but  that  which  he  had  in 
common  with  all  high  and  imaginative  men.  But  is 
this  all  ?  has  he  done  nothing  more  ?  If  ever  man 
caught  the  soul  of  things,  not  himself,  and  expressed  it, 
Wordsworth  did.  That  he  has  done  it  in  nature  almost 


62  WORDSWORTH: 

limitlessly  we  have  seen.  In  man  he  has  done  it  not 
less  truly,  though  more  restrictedly.  Taking  the  re- 
strictions at  their  utmost,  what  contemporary  poet  (I 
do  not  speak  of  Scott  in  his  novels)  has  left  to  his 
country  such  a  gallery  of  new  and  individual  portraits 
as  a  permanent  possession  ?  The  deeper  side  of  char- 
acter no  doubt  it  is,  —  the  heart  of  men,  not  their 
clothes,  —  but  it  is  character  in  which  there  is  nothing 
of  himself,  nothing  which  all  men  might  not  or  do  not 
share.  The  affliction  of  Margaret,  the  Mad  Mother, 
Gypsies,  Laodamia,  the  Highland  Reaper,  the  Wag- 
oner, Peter  Bell,  Matthew,  Michael,  the  Cumberland 
Beggar,  all  the  tenants  of  the  Churchyard  among  the 
Mountains  —  what  are  these  ?  What,  but  so  many 
separate,  individual,  outstanding  portraits,  into  which 
all  of  himself  that  enters  is  only  the  eye  that  can  see 
and  read  their  souls  on  their  deeper  side.  For  it  is 
not  their  outward  contour,  nor  their  complexion,  nor 
dress,  he  busies  himself  with.  He  painted,  as  Titian 
and  Leonardo  did  their  great  portraits,  with  the  deeper 
soul  predominating  in  the  countenance.  If  he  seized 
this,  he  cared  little  for  the  rest.  Let  us  discard,  then, 
that  foolish  talk  about  Wordsworth  as  a  merely  subjec- 
tive poet,  who  could  give  nothing  but  his  own  feelings, 
or  copies  of  his  own  countenance. 

There  are  many  other  aspects  in  which  this  vital 
power  of  imagination  in  Wordsworth  might  be  viewed. 
Only  one  more  of  these  I  must  note,  and  then  pass  on. 
He  pushed  the  domain  of  poetry  into  a  whole  field  of 
subjects  hitherto  unapproached  by  the  poets.  In  him, 
perhaps  more  than  any  other  contemporary  writer 
either  of  prose  or  verse,  we  see  the  highest  spirit  of 
this  century,  in  its  contrast  with  that  of  the  preceding, 
summed  up  and  condensed.  What  most  strikes  one,  in 
recurring  to  the  poetry  of  the  Pope  and  Addison  period, 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  63 

is  its  external  character,  and  the  limited  range  oi  sub- 
jects which  it  dealt  with.  In  the  writings  of  that  time, 
the  play  of  the  intellect  is  little  leavened  by  sentiment, 
little  of  individual  character  is  suffered  to  transpire. 
The  heart,  it  would  seem,  was  either  dormant,  or  kept 
under  strict  surveillance,  and  not  allowed  to  interfere 
with  the  working  of  the  understanding.  Literature 
appeared  like  a  well-bred,  elderly  gentleman  in  ruffles 
and  peruke,  of  polished  but  somewhat  chilling  manners, 
which  meet  all  warmth  of  feeling  with  the  frost  of 
etiquette.  And  just  as  in  such  society  conversation  is 
restricted  to  certain  subjects,  of  these  touches  but  the 
surface,  and  does  even  that  in  set  phrases,  so  it  was 
with  the  literature  of  the  golden  days  of  Queen  Anne 
and  the  first  two  Georges.  From  this  very  limitation 
in  the  range  both  of  subjects  and  treatment,  there  arose 
in  the  hands  of  the  masters  a  perfection  of  style  within 
these  limits ;  just  as  in  the  finitude  of  Grecian  archi- 
tecture, perfection  is  more  easily  attained  than  in 
Gothic  with  its  infinite  aims.  In  the  writers  who 
followed,  so-called  classicism  degenerated  into  conven- 
tionality in  subject,  in  treatment,  and  in  language.  In 
Cowper,  as  has  been  said,  we  see  the  beginning  of  the 
recoil.  But  it  was  by  "Wordsworth  that  the  revolt  was 
most  openly  proclaimed  and  most  fully  carried  out. 
The  changed  spirit  was  no  doubt  in  the  time,  and  would 
have  made  its  way  independently  of  any  single  man. 
But  no  one  power  could  have  helped  it  forward  more 
effectually  than  the  capacious  and  inward-seeing  soul  of 
Wordsworth.  Whereas  the  poetry  of  the  former  age 
had  dealt  mainly  with  the  outside  of  things,  or  if  it 
sometimes  went  further,  did  so  with  such  a  stereotyped 
manner  and  diction  as  to  make  it  look  like  external 
wx>rk,  Wordsworth  everywhere  went  straight  to  the 
inside  of  things.  We  have  seen  already  how,  whether 


64  WORDSWORTH: 

in  his  own  self-revelations,  or  in  his  descriptions  of  the 
visible  creation,  or  in  his  delineations  of  men,  he  passed 
always  from  the  surface  to  the  centre,  from  the  outside 
looks  to  the  inward  character.  This  one  characteristic 
set  him  in  entire  opposition  to  the  art  of  last  century. 
Out  of  it  arose  the  entire  revolution  he  made  in  sub- 
jects, treatment,  and  diction.  Seeing  in  many  things 
which  had  hitherto  been  deemed  unfit  subjects  for  poe- 
try, a  deeper  truth  and  beauty  than  in  those  which  had 
hitherto  been  most  handled  by  the  poets,  he  reclaimed 
from  the  wilderness  vast  tracts  that  had  been  lying 
waste,  and  brought  them  within  the  poetic  domain.  In 
this  way  he  has  done  a  wider  service  to  poetry  than 
any  other  poet  of  his  time,  but  since  him  no  one  has 
arisen  of  spirit  strong  and  large  enough  to  make  full 
proof  of  the  liberty  he  bequeathed. 

The  same  freedom,  and  by  dint  of  the  same  powers, 
he  won  for  future  poets  with  regard  to  the  language 
of  poetry.  He  was  the  first  who  both  in  theory  and 
practice  entirely  shook  off  the  trammels  of  the  so-called 
poetic  diction  which  had  tyrannized  over  English 
poetry  for  more  than  a  century.  This  diction  of  course 
exactly  represented  the  half-courtly,  half-classical  mode 
of  thinking  and  feeling.  As  Wordsworth  rebelled 
against  this  conventionality  of  spirit,  so  against  the 
outward  expression  of  it.  The  whole  of  the  stock 
phrases  and  used-up  metaphors  he  discarded,  and  re- 
turned to  living  language  of  natural  feeling,  as  it  is 
used  by  men,  instead  of  the  dead  form  of  it  which  had 
got  stereotyped  in  books.  And  just  as  in  his  subjects 
he  had  taken  in  from  the  waste  much  virgin  soil,  so  in 
his  diction  he  appropriated  for  poetic  HSC  a  large 
amount  of  words,  idioms,  metaphors,  till  then  by  the 
poets  disallowed.  In  doing  so,  he  may  here  and  there 
have  made  a  mistake,  the  homely  trenching  on  the 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  65 

ludicrous,  as  in  the  lines  about  the  washing-tub  and 
some  others,  long  current  in  the  ribaldry  of  critics. 
But,  bating  a  few  almost  necessary  failures,  he  did 
more  than  any  other  by  his  usage  and  example  to 
reanimate  the  effete  language  of  poetry,  and  restore  to 
it  healthfulness,  strength,  and  feeling.  His  shorter 
poems,  both  the  earlier  and  the  later,  are  for  the  most 
part  very  models  of  natural,  powerful,  and  yet  sensitive 
English ;  the  language  being  like  a  garment  woven 
out  of  and  transparent  with  the  thought.  Of  the 
diction  of  his  longer  blank  verse  poems,  which  is  far 
from  being  so  faultless,  I  shall  have  something  to  say 
in  the  sequel. 

As  to  the  theory  which  he  propounds  in  his  famous 
Preface,  that  the  language  of  poetry  ought  nowise  to 
differ  from  that  of  prose,  this  is  only  his  protest  against 
the  old  poetic  phraseology,  too  sweepingly  laid  down. 
His  own  practice  is  the  best  commentary  on,  and  anti- 
dote to,  his  theory,  where  he  has  urged  it  to  an  ex- 
treme. Coleridge  and  De  Quincey  have  both  criticised 
the  "  Preface "  severely,  so  that  in  their  hands  it 
would  seem  to  contain  either  a  paradox  or  a  truism. 
Into  this  subject  I  cannot  now  enter.  This  only  may 
be  said  on  the  Wordsworthian  side,  as  against  these 
critics,  that  while  the  language  of  prose  receives  new 
life  and  strength  by  adopting  the  idioms  and  phrases 
used  in  the  present  conversation  of  educated  men,  that 
of  poetry  may  go  further,  and  borrow  with  advantage 
the  language  from  cottage  firesides.  Who  has  ever 
listened  to  a  peasant  father  or  mother  describing  the 
last  illness  of  one  of  their  own  children,  or  speaking 
of  those  who  were  gone,  without  having  heard  from 
their  lips  words  which,  for  natural  and  expressive 
feeling,  were  the  very  essence  of  poetry  !  Poets  may 
5 


66  WORDSWORTti: 

well  adopt  these,  for,  if  they  trust  to  their  own  re- 
sources, they  can  invent  nothing  equal  to  them. 

These  reflections  on  the  main  characteristics  of 
Wordsworth  arose  out  of  a  survey  of  the  poems 
written  during  his  first  Grasmere  period.  But  they 
have  passed  beyond  the  bounds  for  which  they  were 
originally  intended,  and  may  apply  in  large  measure  to 
his  poems  of  the  second  period,  written  at  Allan  Bank 
in  Grasmere,  and  during  his  first  years  at  Rydal 
Mount.  These  were  "  The  Excursion,"  "  The  White 
Doe  of  Rylstone,"  "  The  Duddon  Sonnets,"  and  some 
smaller  poems.  In  these  there  is  perhaps  less  of  that 
ethereal  light,  that  spiritualizing  power  shed  over 
nature,  which  forms  the  peculiar  charm  of  the  best  of 
his  earlier  poems.  But  if  there  is  less  penetrating 
interpretation  of  nature,  there  is  a  deepened  moral 
wisdom,  a  larger  entering  into  the  heart  of  universal 
man.  I  spoke  above  of  the  limitations  of  his  earlier 
poetry  in  this  latter  region.  These  in  his  later  poems 
are  perhaps  less  apparent,  partly  from  the  expansion 
of  the  philosophic  mind  by  years  of  meditation,  and  by 
kindly  though  limited  intercourse  with  men ;  partly 
from  a  gradual  lessening  of  the  exclusive  bias  towards 
humble  life,  as  his  Republican  fervor  abated. 

To  discuss  "  The  Excursion,"  as  its  importance  de- 
mands, would  require  a  long  separate  treatise.  It  was 
a  theme  worthy  of  a  great  philosophic  poem,  which 
Wordsworth  proposed  to  himself.  A  being,  like  the 
Solitary,  by  domestic  bereavement,  and  by  ardent  hopes 
of  the  first  French  Revolution,  too  rudely  disappointed, 
driven  into  skepticism  and  despondency — how  can 
such  an  one  win  his  way  back  to  sympathy  with  man, 
and  to  faith  in  God  ?  The  outward  circumstances  of 
such  a  subject  may  vary,  but  itself  is  of  perennial  im- 
port. French  Revolutions  may  not  repeat  themselves 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  67 

with  every  generation,  but  unbelieving  cynicism  is  an 
evil  of  continual  recurrence,  —  an  evil  which  is  not 
checked  by,  but  would  rather  seem  increasingly  to  at- 
tend on,  our  much  vaunted  march  of  mind.  As  to  the 
poet's  way  of  dealing  with  the  problem,  there  is  ground 
for  the  disappointment  which  many  have  felt,  that  the 
truths  of  revelation,  though  everywhere  acknowledged, 
are  nowhere  brought  prominently  forward.  It  is  the 
religion  which  the  poet  has  extracted  from  nature  and 
man's  moral  instincts  on  which  he  mainly  dwells  ;  yet 
it  is  such  a  religion,  so  pure  and  so  elevated,  as  these 
sources,  but  for  the  light  they  draw  from  the  revelation 
close  at  hand,  never  could  have  supplied.  In  the  crisis 
of  the  poem,  when  the  poet  has  to  apply  his  medicine 
to  the  mind  diseased,  and  when  the  Solitary  is  importu- 
nate for  an  answer,  the  poet  turns  aside,  and  recom- 
mends communion  with  nature,  and  free  intercourse 
with  men,  in  a  way  which  to  many  has  seemed  like  a 
disavowal  of  the  power  of  Christian  faith.  This  seems, 
however,  too  severe  a  judgment.  Wordsworth  knew 
clearly  that  there  are  many  cases  in  which,  as  the  pas- 
sages to  the  heart  have  been  closed  by  false  reasonings 
and  morbid  views,  the  way  to  it  is  not  to  be  found  by 
any  direct  arguments,  however  true.  What  is  wanted 
is  some  antidote  which  shall  bring  back  the  feelings  to 
a  healthful  tone,  remove  obstructions  from  within,  and 
so,  through  restored  health  of  heart,  put  the  under- 
standing in  a  condition  which  is  open  to  the  power  of 
truth.  Awaken  healthful  sensibilities  in  the  heart,  and 
a  right  state  of  intellect  will  be  sure  to  follow.  This 
is  Wordsworth's  moral  pathology.-  And  the  restorative 
discipline  he  recommends  is  that  which  in  his  own 
mental  trial  he  had  found  effectual.  This  I  believe  to 
be  the  true  account ;  and  yet  one  cannot  help  thinking 
there  was  not  only  room,  but  even  a  call  for  a  fuller 


68  WORDSWORTH: 

acknowledgment  of  the  Christian  verities.  The  defect 
probably  arose  from  the  poet's  carrying  his  own  expe- 
rience, and  his  peculiar  views  about  the  sanative  power 
of  nature,  further  than  they  hold  true,  at  least  for  the 
majority  of  men.  While  such  is  the  advice  given  to 
the  Solitary,  the  course  practically  taken  is  to  lead  him 
to  the  churchyard  among  the  mountains  at  Grasmere, 
there  to  hear  from  the  lips  of  the  pastor  how  they  lived 
and  died,  the  lowly  tenants  of  the  surrounding  graves, 
in  order  that  hearing  he  may  learn  — 

"  To  prize  the  breath  we  share  with  human  kind ; 
An,d  look  upon  the  dust  of  man  with  awe." 

To  many  who  little  care  for  the  philosophy,  "  The 
Excursion  "  will  always  be  dear  for  the  pictures  of 
mountain  scenes,  and  the  pathetic  records  of  rural  life 
which  it  contains.  The  two  books  of  the  "  Churchyard 
among  the  Mountains,"  are  beyond  all  the  others  sus- 
tained in  interest,  and  perfect  in  style.  In  themselves 
they  form  a  noble  poem,  full  of  deep  insight  into  the 
heart,  of  attractive  portraits  of  character,  and  of  tender 
and  elevating  views  of  human  life  and  destiny.  No 
one  with  a  heart  to  feel  can  read  them  carefully  with- 
out being  the  better  for  it.  Of  all  the  lives  there  por- 
trayed, perhaps  there  is  none  which  goes  so  straight  to 
the  heart  as  the  affecting  story  of  Ellen  :  — 

"  As,  on  a  sunny  bank,  a  tender  lamb 
Lurks  in  safe  shelter  from  the  winds  of  March, 
Screened  by  its  parent,  so  that  little  mound 
Lies  guarded  by  its  neighbor;  the  small  heap 
Speaks  for  itself;  an  Infant  there  doth  rest; 
The  sheltering  hillock  is  the  Mother's  grave. 
If  mild  discourse,  and  manners  that  conferred 
A  natural  dignity  on  humblest  rank; 
If  gladsome  spirits,  and  benignant  looks, 
That  for  a  face  not  beautiful  did  more 
Than  beauty  for  the  fairest  face  can  do; 
And  if  religious  tenderness  of  heart, 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  69 

Grieving  for  sin,  and  penitential  tears 

Shed  when  the  clouds  had  gathered  and  disstained 

The  spotless  ether  of  a  maiden  life ; 

If  these  may  make  a  hallowed  spot  of  earth 

More  holy  in  the  sight  of  God  or  man ; 

Then,  on  that  mound,  a  sanctity  shall  brood 

Till  the  stars  sicken  at  the  day  of  doom." 

Then  follows  the  character  of  the  cottage  girl,  her 
love,  betrayal,  the  broken  vow ;  her  shame  and  sorrow, 
relief  by  the  birth  of  her  child,  the  necessity  to  leave 
her  own  and  nurse  a  neighbor's  ;  her  own  child's  sick- 
ness, and  her  cruelly  enforced  absence  from  it;  its 
death,  her  long  vigils  by  its  grave,  a  weeping  Magda- 
lene —  ended  by  her  own  decline  :  — 

"  Meek  saint !  through  patience  glorified  on  earth ! 
In  whom,  as  by  her  lonely  hearth  she  sate 
The  ghastly  face  of  cold  decay  put  on 
A  sun-like  beauty,  and  appeared  divine  ! 

She  said, 

'  He  who  afflicts  me  knows  what  I  can  bear ; 
And,  when  I  fail,  and  can  endure  no  more, 
Will  mercifully  take  me  to  Himself.' 
So  through  the  cloud  of  death  her  spirit  passed 
Into  that  pure  and  unknown  world  of  love 
Where  injury  cannot  come." 

They  say  that  Wordsworth  wants  passion.  For 
feeling,  not  on  the  surface  but  in  the  depth,  pathos  pure 
and  profound,  what  of  modern  verse  can  equal  this 
story  and  that  of  Margaret  ?  The  very  roll  of  these 
lines  above  quoted  is  oracular.  There  is  in  them  the 
echo  of  a  soul  the  most  capacious,  tender,  and  profound, 
that  has  spoken  through  modern  poetry. 

The  mention  of  these  lines  suggests  one  word  in 
passing,  on  Wordsworth's  blank  verse.  In  "  The  Ex- 
cursion," and  more  still  in  "  The  Prelude,"  it  often 
greatly  needs  condensation,  may  even  be  said  to  be 
tediously  prolix.  When  speaking  of  homely  matters, 
there  is  circumlocution  at  times  amounting  to  awk- 


70  WORDSWORTH: 

wardness  ;  and  when  philosophizing  there  is,  unlike  the 
smaller  poems,  too  profuse  a  use  of  long-winded  Latin 
words,  to  the  neglect  of  the  mother  Saxon.  Yet,  even 
in  these  passages,  there  is  hardly  a  page  without  some 
atoning  lines  in  the  true  Wordsworthian  mould.  Even 
in  those  disquisitions  of  "  The  Excursion  "  which  seem 
most  prosy,  as  the  paragraphs  on  a  system  of  National 
Education,  there  are  seldom  wanting  some  of  those 
glances  of  deeper  vision,  by  which  old  neglected  truths 
are  flashed  with  new  power  on  the  consciousness,  or 
new  relations  of  truth,  which  had  hitherto  lain  hidden, 
are  for  the  first  time  revealed.  Of  such  apothegms 
of  moral  wisdom,  how  large  a  number  could  be  gleaned 
from  that  poem  alone !  But  it  is  in  the  passages  where 
Wordsworth's  inspiration  kindles  that  the  full  power 
of  his  blank  verse  is  to  be  seen.  Wordsworth's  blank 
verse,  so  prolix  in  ordinary  narrative,  so  grand  in  its 
loftier  passages,  brings  forcibly  to  mind  what  I  once 
heard  Hartley  Coleridge  say  of  his  whole  poetry. 
When  employed  to  do  a  hackney's  work  along  the 
common  highway,  he  stumbles  and  blunders  at  almost 
every  step ;  it  is  only  when  he  strikes  a  higher  strain 
and  "  soars  steadily  into  the  region  "  that  you  discover 
him  to  be  a  veritable  Pegasus.  His  blank  verse  is 
seen  at  its  best  in  such  passages  of  "  The  Excursion  " 
as  these :  The  Wanderer's  account  of  his  own  feelings 
when,  a  boy,  he  watched  the  sunrise  over  Athole,  and 
indeed  the  whole  description  of  his  boyhood  ;  the  story 
of  Margaret,  already  spoken  of;  the  description  of  the 
Langdale  Pikes ;  the  Solitary's  history  of  himself ;  the 
Wanderer's  advice  to  him  at  the  close  of  Despondency 
Corrected  ;  and  I  may  add,  almost  the  whole  of  the 
two  books  of  the  Churchyard.  On  the  characters  who 
form  the  chief  speakers  in  the  poem,  the  Pedlar  or 
Wanderer,  the  Solitary,  and  the  Pastor,  I  cannot  now 


TEE  MAN  AND  THE  POET.  71 

dwell.  Those  who  wish  to  see  from  what  materials 
Wordsworth  framed  them,  will  find  some  interesting 
memoranda  from  his  own  lips,  contained  in  the  biogra- 
phy by  his  nephew,  and  now  incorporated  in  the  edition 
of  his  Poems  of  1857.  It  seems  strange  to  look  back 
to  the  outcry  that  was  long  made  against  the  employ- 
ment of  a  pedlar  as  the  chief  figure  of  the  poem.  That 
this  should  now  seem  to  most  quite  natural,  or  at  least 
noways  offensive,  may  serve  to  mark  the  change  in 
literary  feeling  which  Wordsworth  himself  did  so  much 
to  introduce. 

"  The  Excursion  "  was  published  in  1814,  and  the 
following  year  brought  to  light  another  long  poem, 
"  The  White  Doe  of  Rylstone."  A  great  part  of  it, 
however,  had  been  composed  as  early  as  1807,  while 
Wordsworth  was  on  a  visit  to  his  wife's  family  at 
Sockburn-upon-Tees.  Whether  he  then  visited  Bol- 
ton  Abbey  and  its  neighborhood  for  the  first  time 
does  not  appear.  This  poem,  pronounced  by  the  great 
critic  of  the  day  to  be  "  the  very  worst  poem  he  ever 
saw  imprinted  in  a  quarto  volume,"  has  a  very  be- 
witching and  unique  charm  of  its  own.  The  scene 
is  laid  in  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  begins  and 
ends  with  Bolton  Priory,  and  the  story  of  a  white  doe 
which  haunts  it.  This  doe  had  been  the  favorite  of 
Emily  Norton,  sole  daughter  of  Richard  Norton  of 
Rylstone  Hall,  who,  with  his  eight  sons,  had  marched 
forth  in  the  army  of  the  Catholic  Lords  engaged  in 
the  insurrection  known  as  the  Rising  of  the  North. 
Emily  and  a  ninth  son,  Francis,  were  of  the  Protestant 
faith,  and  disapproved  of  the  enterprise.  But  he, 
without  taking  part  in  the  expedition,  follows  his 
father,  to  be  of  what  use  he  can ;  sees  him  and  his 
eight  brothers  led  to  execution,  and  is  himself  accident- 
ally slain,  and  buried  in  Bolton  Priory.  The  sister's 


72  WORDSWORTH: 

lot  is  to  remain  behind,  to  hear  of  the  utter  extinction 
of  her  house,  and  by  force  of  passive  fortitude,  — 

«  To  abide 

The  shock,  and  finally  secure 
O'er  pain  and  grief  a  triumph  pure." 

The  white  doe,  which  had  been  her  companion  in 
happier  days,  comes  to  her  side  and  seems  to  enter 
into  her  sorrow,  attends  her  when  on  moonlight  nights 
she  visits  Bolton  Abbey,  and  her  brothers'  grave,  and 
long  years  after  she  is  gone  continues  to  haunt  the 
hallowed  place  and  couch  by  that  same  grave.  "  Every- 
thing attempted  by  the  principal  personages  fails  in 
its  material  effects,  succeeds  in  its  moral  and  spiritual." 
This  is  Wordsworth's  own  account  of  it.  Certainly 
the  active  and  warlike  parts  of  the  poem  are  need- 
lessly tame  and  unexciting,  forming  a  marked  contrast 
with  the  way  Scott  would  have  handled  the  same  sub- 
jects. That  Wordsworth  could,  if  he  had  chosen, 
have  improved  these  parts  of  his  poem,  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  for  the  song  of  "  Brougham  Castle,"  and 
several  of  the  warlike  sonnets  prove  that  he  could, 
when  so  minded,  strike  a  Tyrtaean  strain.  But  if,  in 
"The  White  Doe,"  he  fails  where  Scott  would  have 
succeeded,  he  does  what  neither  Scott  nor  any  one 
else  could  equally  have  done.  It  is,  in  truth,  a  poem 
not  of  action  at  all,  but  entirely  of  sentiment,  and  sen- 
timent as  deep  as  life.  Gazing  on  Bolton's  ruined 
abbey,  as  it  stands  on  its  green  holm,  looked  down  on 
by  majestic  woods  and  quiet  uplands,  and  lulled  by  the 
murmuring  Wharf,  his  whole  heart  is  filled  by  the 
impressive  and  hallowed  scene.  And  all  the  feelings 
awakened  within  him  he  gathers  up  and  concentrates 
in  this  legendary  creature,  making  her  at  every  turn, 
whether  passing  into  shadow  under  broken  arch,  or 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  73 

throwing  a  gleam  into  gloomy  vault,  or  crouching  in 
the  moonlight  on  the  last  Norton's  green  grave,  bring 
out  some  new  lineament,  call  up  some  fair  imagination. 
She  is  the  most  perfectly  ideal  embodiment  of  the 
finer  spirit  of  the  place  that  it  could  have  entered  into 
poet's  heart  to  conceive. 

Of  "  Peter  BeU  "  and  "  The  Wagoner,"  both  com- 
posed long  before,  but  published  after  "  The  White 
Doe,"  I  have  not  now  space  to  say  one  word.  At  the 
time  when  he  was  preparing  his  eldest  son  for  college, 
Wordsworth  studied  carefully  several  of  the  Latin 
poets,  which  led  to  his  attempting  two  or  three  poems 
on  classical  subjects.  One  of  these,  "  Laodamia,"  will 
always  stand  out  prominent  even  among  his  happiest 
productions.  Throwing  himself  naturally  into  the  sit- 
uation, he  informs  the  old  Achaian  legend  with  a  fine 
moral  dignity  peculiarly  his  own :  — 

«  Elysian  beauty,  melancholy  grace, 
Brought  from  a  pensive,  though  a  happy  place." 

At  the  same  time  there  is  a  visible  change  from  the 
simple  homespun  Saxon  diction  of  the  lyrical  ballads 
to  a  more  full-mouth  amplitude  which  suited  well  such 
a  subject  as  "  Laodamia,"  but  which  grew  upon  him 
more  and  more  till  it  became  verbosity. 

And  now  but  a  word  on  the  third  period  of  Words- 
worth's poetry.  This  began,  one  may  say,  about  the 
year  1820,  and  lasted  till  the  close  of  his  poetic  life. 
It  was  the  time  when  he  wrote  the  "Ecclesiastical 
Sonnets,"  which,  though  containing  here  and  there 
some  gems,  —  such  as  that  on  "  Old  Abbeys  "  — 

M  Once  ye  were  holy,  ye  are  holy  still; 
Your  spirit  freely  let  me  drink,  and  live;  " 

are  not,  on  the  whole,  equal  to  many  of  his  earlier 
ones.  Sonnet .  writing  begun  at  Grasmere,  had  long 


74  WORDSWORTH: 

been  a  favorite  relaxation  with  him  in  the  midst  of 
larger  works.  The  sonnets,  are  like  small  off-lets  from 
the  main  stream  of  his  poetry,  into  which  whatever 
thoughts  from  time  to  time  arose  might  overflow. 
This  form  is  well  fitted  for  the  detached  musings  of  a 
meditative  poet.  As  each  new  thought  awakes,  a  new 
form  for  it  has  not  to  be  sought,  the  mould  is  here 
ready,  and  all  the  poet  has  to  do  is  to  cast  the  liquid 
metal  into  it.  Wordsworth's  sonnets  are  so  numerous 
and  so  important  that  they  form  quite  a  literature, 
which,  if  justice  were  done  them,  would  demand  an  ex- 
tended notice  for  themselves.  The  rest  of  the  poems 
of  this  epoch  are  memorials  of  four  separate  tours : 
two  on  the  Continent  in  1830  and  1837,  two  in  Scot- 
land in  1831  and  1833.  Taken  as  a  whole,  none  of 
these  tours  produced  anything  equal  to  his  earliest  one 
in  Scotland.  But  the  former  of  the  two  continental 
tours  produced  one  poem  almost  equal  to  any  of  his 
prime,  that  on  the  Eclipse  in  1820.  The  description 
there  of  Milan  Cathedral,  with  its  white  hosts  of  angels, 
and  its  starry  zone,  — 

"  All  steeped  in  that  portentous  light, 
All  suffering  dim  eclipse," 

is  in  his  finest  later  style. 

But  that  among  all  these  later  poems  which  most 
wins  regard  is  the  beautiful  and  affecting  thread  of 
allusion  to  Walter  Scott  that  runs  through  them. 
Open-minded  appreciation  of  contemporary  poets  was 
not  one  of  Wordsworth's  strong  points.  A  very 
marked  one-sidedness,  not  hard  to  explain,  arose  out 
of  at  once  his  weakness  and  his  strength.  Disparag- 
ing remarks  about  Scott's  poetry  were  reported  from 
his  conversation,  and  these  seem  to  have  been  present 
to  Lockhart's  thought  as  he  penned  his  last  notice  of 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POUT.  75 

"Wordsworth.  He  might  have  recalled  at  the  same 
time  the  many  kind  and  beautiful  lines  in  which  he 
who  never  said  in  verse  what  he  did  not  truly  feel,  has 
embodied  his  feelings  about  Scott.  Wordsworth  had 
cordially  welcomed  "  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel," 
and  always  continued  to  like  it  best  of  Scott's  poems. 
He  and  the  "  Shirra  "  first  met  in  the  latter's  house  in 
Lasswade,  just  after  Wordsworth  and  his  sister  had 
left  Yarrow  un visited  — 

"  For  when  we're  there,  although  'tis  fair, 
"Twill  be  another  Yarrow." 

In  1814,  as  he  descended  from  Traquair  accom- 
panied by  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  he  exclaimed  — 

"  And  is  this  —  Yarrow?  —  This  the  stream 

Of  which  my  fancy  cherished, 
So  faithfully  a  waking  dream  ? 
An  image  that  hath  perished !  " 

In  September  1831,  Wordsworth  and  his  daughter 
Dora  set  out  on  a  visit  to  Abbotsford,  to  see  Scott 
once  more  before  the  latter  left  Tweedside  for  Italy  in 
hopes  of  repairing  there  his  broken  health.  It  was  a 
brief  visit,  as  Scott  was  on  the  very  eve  of  his  depart- 
ure, but,  ere  they  parted,  they  snatched  one  more 
look  at  Yarrow,  —  the  last  both  for  Scott  and  Words- 
worth :  — 

"  Once  more,  by  Newark's  Castle-gate 

Long  left  without  a  warder, 
I  stood,  looked,  listened,  and  with  thee, 
Great  Minstrel  of  the  Border." 

And  though  the  hand  of  sickness  lay  heavy  upon  Scott, 
they  did  their  best  — 

"  To  make  a  day  of  happy  hours, 
Their  happy  days  recalling." 

But  throughout  the  "Yarrow  Revisited,"  written  in 
remembrance  of  that  day,  there  is  visible  the  pressure 


76  WORDSWORTH: 

of  an  actual  grief,  little  in  harmony  with  the  pensive 
ideal  light  that  is  upon  the  two  former  Yarrows.  "  On 
our  return  in  the  afternoon,"  says  Wordsworth,  "  we 
had  to  cross  Tweed  (by  the  old  ford)  directly  opposite 
Abbotsford.  The  wheels  of  our  carriage  grated  upon 
the  pebbles  in  the  bed  of  the  stream  that  there  flows 
somewhat  rapidly.  A  rich,  but  sad  light,  of  rather  a 
purple  than  a  golden  hue,  was  spread  over  the  Eildon 
Hills  at  that  moment,  and  thinking  it  probable  that  it 
might  be  the  last  time  Sir  Walter  would  cross  the 
stream,  I  was  not  a  little  moved,  and  expressed  some 
of  my  feelings  in  the  sonnet  beginning  — 

" « A  trouble  not  of  clouds,  or  weeping  rain.' " 
This  is  the  noble  sonnet  in  which  he  says  — 

»  The  might 

Of  the  whole  world's  good  wishes  with  him  goes ; 
Blessings  and  prayers  in  nobler  retinue 
Than  sceptred  king  or  laureled  conqueror  knows, 
Follow  this  wondrous  Potentate." 

"At  noon,  on  Thursday,"  Wordsworth  continues, 
"  we  left  Abbotsford,  and  on  the  morning  of  that  day 
Sir  Walter  and  I  had  a  serious  conversation  tete-a-tete, 
when  he  spoke  with  gratitude  of  the  happy  life  which, 
upon  the  whole,  he  had  led.  He  had  written  in  my 
daughter's  album  before  he  came  into  the  breakfast- 
room  that  morning,  a  few  stanzas  addressed  to  her ; 
and  while  putting  the  book  into  her  hand,  in  his  own 
study,  standing  by  his  desk,  he  said  to  her  in  my  pres- 
ence, 'I  should  not  have  done  anything  of  this  kind, 
but  for  your  father's  sake  —  they  are  probably  the  last 
verses  I  shall  ever  write.'  "  And  they  were  the  very 
last.  I  remember  one  most  affecting  stanza  of  these 
lines,  which  I  heard  long  ago  from  one  who  had  seen 
them  in  the  album,  —  that  same  album  which  contained 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  77 

autograph  and  unpublished  lines  written  by  Coleridge, 
Southey,  and  other  poets  of  the  time,  for  Worusworth's 
daughter.  When  I  wrote  this  two  years  ago,  the  lines 
had  never  been  made  public ;  and  therefore  I  felt  that 
I  had  no  right  to  give  the  stanza  which  I  remembered. 
Since  then,  Bishop  Wordsworth  has  quoted  it  in  a 
published  letter,  and  the  seal  of  secrecy  is  thus  re- 
moved. The  allusion  is  to  Scott's  early  friendship 
with  Wordsworth :  — 

"  'Tis  well  the  gifted  eye  which  saw 

The  first  faint  sparks  of  genius  burn, 
Should  mark  its  latest  flash  with  awe, 
Low  glimmering  from  its  funeral  urn." 

They  who  wish  to  see  all  the  four  stanzas  will  find 
them,  along  with  an  interesting  note,  in  the"  Selections 
from  the  Works  of  Scott,"  lately  edited  by  Mr.  Morti- 
mer Collins,  in  Moxon's  "  Miniature  Poets." 

During  the  same  journey,  Wordsworth  seems  to  have 
revisited,  besides  Yarrow,  other  places  in  Scotland, 
which  he  had  seen  and  sung  in  his  earlier  day.  Among 
these  he  again  passed  through  the  Trosachs,  bright  with 
their  autumnal  glory.  The  record  of  this  visit  is  that 
sonnet,  so  full  of  the  calm,  yet  not  mournful  meditation, 
which  that  season  brings  everywhere,  and  especially  in 
such  a  place,  deepened,  perhaps,  by  his  feeling  for  the 
Border  Minstrel  from  whom  he  had  just  parted :  — 

"  There's  not  a  nook  within  this  solemn  Pass, 
But  were  an  apt  confessional  for  one 
Taught  by  his  summer  spent,  his  autumn  gone, 
That  life  is  but  a  tale  of  morning  grass 
Withered  at  eve.     From  scenes  of  art  which  chase 
That  thought  away,  turn,  and  with  watchful  eyes 
Feed  it  'mid  Nature's  old  felicities, 
Rocks,  rivers,  and  smooth  lakes  more  clear  than  glass 
Untouched,  unbreathed  upon." 

Compare  this  with  the  stave  which  Wordsworth 
chanted  on  the  same  ground  long  before,  when  — 


78  WORDSWORTH: 

"  Stepping  westward  seemed  to  be 
A  kind  of  heavenly  destiny  : 
I  liked  the  greeting  ;  'twas  a  sound 
Of  something  without  place  or  bound, 
And  seemed  to  give  me  spiritual  right 
To  travel  through  that  region  bright. 
The  voice  was  soft,  and  she  who  spake 
Was  walking  by  her  native  lake  ; 
The  salutation  had  to  me 
The  very  sound  of  courtesy: 
Its  power  was  felt,  and  while  my  eye 
Was  fixed  upon  the  glowing  sky, 
The  echo  of  the  voice  en  wrought 
A  human  sweetness  with  the  thought 
Of  travelling  through  the  world  that  lay 
Before  me  in  my  endless  way." 


Between  the  sonnet  and  these  lines,  the  one  in  his  best 
early,  the  other  in  his  best  latest  style,  you  have  the 
whole  difference  between  the  vernal  hopefulness,  the 
ethereal  ideality  of  his  prime,  and  the  sober  coloring, 
the  more  chastened  feeling  which  thirty  years  had 
brought. 

Once  again,  in  1833,  Wordsworth  visited  Scotland, 
but  by  that  time  Scott  was  lying  in  the  ruined  aisle  at 
Dryburgh,  within  sound  of  his  own  Tweed.  Two 
years  after  this,  in  the  autumn  of  1835,  on  hearing  of 
the  death  of  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  he  poured  forth 
that  fine  lament  over  his  brother  poets  who  had  fol- 
lowed each  other  so  fast  "  from  sunshine  to  the  sunless 
land."  In  it  he  alludes  once  again  to  his  two  visits  to 
Yarrow,  the  one  with  the  shepherd-poet  for  his  guide, 
the  other  with  Sir  Walter. 

Once  more,  the  last  time,  when  on  a  tour  in  Italy  in 
1837,  amid  the  "Musings  near  Aquapendente,"  his 
heart  reverts  to  Scott.  Seeing  the  broom  in  flower  on 
an  Italian  hill-side,  his  thoughts  turned  homeward  to 
think  how  it  would  be  budding  on  Fairfield  and  Hel- 
vellyn.  Then  the  thought  strikes  him,  what  use  of 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  79 

coming  so  far  to  see  these  new  scenes,  if  his  thoughts 
kept  wandering  back  to  the  old  ones  ? 

"  The  skirt  of  Greenside  fell, 
And  by  Glenridding-screes,  and  low  Glencoign, 
Places  forsaken  now,  though  loving  still 
The  Muses,  as  they  loved  them  in  the  days 
Of  the  old  minstrels  and  the  border  bards." 

One  there  was,  he  says,  who  would  have  sympathized 
with  him  — 

"  Not  the  less 

Had  his  sunk  eye  kindled  at  those  dear  words 
That  spake  of  bards  and  minstrels  ;  and  his  spirit 
Had  flown  with  mine  to  old  Helvellyn's  brow, 
Where  once  together,  in  his  day  of  strength, 
We  stood  rejoicing,  as  if  earth  were  free 
From  sorrow  like  the  sky  above  our  heads." 

He  alludes  to  the  day,  then  thirty  years  gone,  when 
Sir  Walter,  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  and  Wordsworth  had 
ascended  Helvellyn  together.  Then  he  goes  on :  — 

"  Years  followed  years,  and  when,  upon  the  eve 
Of  his  last  going  from  Tweedside,  thought  turned, 
Or  by  another's  sympathy  was  led 
To  this  bright  land,  Hope  was  for  him  no  friend, 
Knowledge  no  help  ;  Imagination  shaped 
No  promise.     Still,  in  more  than  ear-deep  seats, 
Survives  for  me,  and  cannot  but  survive 
The  tone  of  voice  which  wedded  borrowed  words 
To  sadness  not  their  own,  when,  with  faint  smile 
Forced  by  intent  to  take  from  speech  its  edge, 
He  said,  '  When  I  am  there,  although  'tis  fair, 
Twill  be  another  Yarrow.'  .  .  . 

"  Peace  to  his  spirit !  why  should  Poesy 
Yield  to  the  lure  of  vain  regret,  and  hover 
In  gloom  on  wings  with  confidence  outspread 
To  move  in  sunshine !     Utter  thanks,  my  soul ! 
Tempered  with  awe,  and  sweetened  by  compassion 
For  them  who  in  the  shades  of  sorrow  dwell, 
That  I  —  so  near  the  term  to  human  life 
Appointed  by  man's  common  heritage  — 
Am  free  to  rove  where  Nature's  loveliest  looks, 
Art's  noblest  relics,  history's  rich  bequests, 


80  WORDS  WORTE: 

Failed  to  reanimate  and  but  feebly  cheered 
The  whole  world's  Darling." 

This  poem,  and  the  one  suggested  by  Hogg's  death, 
burst  out  from  the  somewhat  tamer  reflections  of  his 
later  days  as  the  last  gleams  of  his  old  fervor.  Hence- 
forth he  wrote  little  more  poetry,  but  he  continued 
almost  to  the  end  to  keep  retouching  his  former  poems. 
Careful  as  he  had  always  been  in  the  work  of  composi- 
tion, he  went  over  them  again  and  again  in  his  later 
years,  changing  them  here  and  there,  but  seldom  for 
the  better.  What  seemed  asperities  were  smoothed 
away,  but  for  the  most  part  the  original  ruggedness  is 
poorly  exchanged  for  the  more  faultless,  but  tamer, 
afterthought.  It  would  be  an  interesting,  and  for  those 
who  make  a  study  of  these  things  a  profitable,  task,  to 
bring  together,  by  comparing  one  edition  with  another, 
the  successive  changes  which  many  well-known  lines 
were  in  this  way  made  to  endure.  One  or  two  speci- 
mens only  must  now  suffice.  In  "  The  Solitary  Reap- 
er," instead  of  the  strong  vernacular  line  — 

"  I  listened,  till  I  had  my  fill," 

of  the  original  edition,  we  now  have  the  faultless,  but 
tame  — 

"  I  listened,  motionless  and  still." 
Again,  in  the  poem  describing  Mary  Hutchinson,  — 

"  And  yet  a  spirit  still,  and  bright 
With  something  of  an  angel  light," 

there  is  one  change  to  "  angelic  light,"  and  in  another 
edition  I  think  I  have  seen  "  celestial  light."  Again, 
in  that  consummate  sonnet,  beginning  — 

"  It  is  a  beauteous  evening,  calm  and  free," 

some  one  had  suggested  that  beauteous  is  an  album 
word,  and  so  the  first  line  was  tortured  into  — 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  POET.  31 

"A  fairer  face  of  heaven  could  not  be;  " 

and  again  into  something  like  this  — 

"  From  fret  and  stir  the  clouds  are  free," 

as  I  remember  once  seeing  it  printed.  Happily  the 
original  line  is  now  restored.  But  in  the  same  sonnet 
the  first  form  of  the  line  — 

"  The  gentleness  of  heaven  is  on  the  sea," 

with  its  transparent  simplicity,  has  been  finally  super- 
seded by  the  more  commonplace  — 

"  The  gentleness  of  heaven  broods  o'er  the  sea." 

During  those  silent  years,  the  aged  poet  might  be 
seen  in  green  old  age  (and  who  that  has  seen  that 
venerable  figure  will  forget  it  ?),  either  as  he  moved 
about  the  roads  in  the  neighborhood  of  Rydal  Mount, 
or  drove  towards  Grasmere  or  Ambleside  in  his  small^ 
rustic-looking  phaeton,  or  as  he  appeared  on  Sundays, 
in  the  corner  of  the  family  pew  near  the  pulpit,  hi  the 
small  church  of  Rydal.  There,  Sunday  by  Sunday,  he 
was  seated,  his  head  inclining  forwards,  and  the  long 
silver  white  hair  like  a  crown  of  glory  on  either  side 
of  the  broad  majestic  brow. 

Towards  the  close  of  1847,  the  household  at  Rydal 
Mount  was  darkened  by  a  great  grief,  the  death  of  the 
poet's  daughter  Dora,  Mrs.  Quillinan.  "  Our  sorrow, 
I  feel,  is  for  life,"  he  wrote,  "  but  God's  will  be  done ! " 
And  it  was  for  life.  At  the  age  of  seventy-seven  such 
a  loss  was  not  to  be  got  over.  Still,  with  firm  step, 
though  saddened  heart,  he  might  be  seen  going  about. 
As  late  as  the  autumn  of  1849,  as  a  stranger  came 
down  *,he  road  from  the  back  of  Rydal  Mount,  h«  met 
Wordsworth  walking  slowly  back  towards  his  house 
from  the  highway,  to  which  he  had  just  conducted  some 
visitors.  His  head  leant  to  one  side,  somewhat  as  it 
6 


82  WORDSWORTH: 

does  in  his  picture,  and  in  his  hand  he  carried  a  branch 
with  withered  leaves.  He  who  passed  him  happened 
to  have  on  a  plaid,  wrapt  round  him  in  Scottish  shep- 
herd's fashion.  This  attracted  his  notice,  and  as  the 
stranger  looked  round,  thinking  it  might  be  the  last 
sight  he  should  ever  have  of  him,  the  poet  had  turned 
round,  and  was  looking  back  too.  There  was  one  long 
look,  but  no  word,  and  both  passed  on. 

"  Matthew  is  in  his  grave,  yet  now, 

Methinks,  I  see  him  stand, 
As  at  that  moment,  with  a  bough 
Of  wilding  in  his  hand." 

In  the  March  of  next  year  he  was  still  able  to  walk 
to  Grasmere  and  to  Ambleside,  the  last  two  walks  he 
took.  The  last  day  he  was  out  of  doors,  he  sat  down 
on  the  stone  seat  of  a  cottage  porch,  where  he  had  been 
calling,  and  watched  the  setting  sun.  It  was  a  cold, 
bright  evening,  and  he  got  a  chill  which  resulted  in 
pleurisy.  He  survived  the  attack,  but  sank  from  after 
weakness.  On  the  7th  of  April,  his  eightieth  birthday, 
he  was  prayed  for  in  Rydal  chapel,  morning  and  even- 
ing. On  Saturday,  the  20th,  when  asked  by  his  son 
whether  he  would  receive  the  communion,  he  replied, 
"  That  is  just  what  I  want."  When  his  wife  wished  to 
let  him  know  that  there  was  no  hope  of  recovery,  she 
said  to  him,  "  William,  you  are  going  to  Dora."  He 
made  no  answer  at  the  time,  but  next  day,  as  one  of 
his  nieces  drew  aside  his  curtain,  he  awoke  from  a  quiet 
sleep,  and  said,  "  Is  that  Dora  ? "  He  breathed  his 
last,  almost  imperceptibly,  on  Tuesday  the  23d  of  April, 
exactly  at  noon,  the  same  day  as  that  on  which  Shake- 
speare was  born  and  died. 

A  few  days  after,  he  was  laid  in  that  corner  of  Gras- 
mere churchyard  where  his  children  had  been  laid  be- 
fore him,  and  to  which  his  wife  and  sister  have  since 


THE  MAN  AND   TEE  POET.  83 

been  gathered.  A  plain  blue  stone,  with  no  other  word 
on  it  than  "  William  Wordsworth,"  marks  the  spot. 
On  one  side  of  it  are  the  eight  yew-trees  planted  there 
long  before,  under  his  direction,  and  carefully  tended 
by  himself.  On  the  other,  the  Rotha,  through  a  clear, 
calm,  deep  pool,  creeps  quietly  by.  Fairfield,  Helm- 
crag,  and  Silver-How  look  down  upon  his  grave. 
Westminster  contains  no  resting-place  so  fit  for  him. 

And  now,  looking  back  on  those  fourscore  years, 
may  it  not  be  said  that  if  any  life  in  modern  times  has 
been  well-rounded  and  complete,  Wordsworth's  was  ? 
From  first  to  last  it  was  one  noble  purpose,  faithfully 
kept,  thoroughly  fulfilled.  The  world  has  rarely  seen 
so  strong  and  capacious  a  soul  devote  itself  to  one,  and 
that  a  lofty  end,  with  such  singleness  and  concentration 
of  aim.  No  doubt  there  was  a  great  original  mind  to 
begin  with,  one  that  saw  more  things,  and  deeper,  than 
any  other  poet  of  his  time.  But  what  would  this  have 
achieved,  had  it  not  been  backed  by  that  moral  strength, 
that  ironness  of  resolve  ?  It  was  this  that  enabled 
him  to  turn  aside  from  professions  that  he  was  little 
suited  for,  and  with  something  less  than  a  hundred  a 
year  face  the  future.  In  time,  doubtless,  other  helps 
were  added,  and  long  before  the  end  he  had  obtained  a 
competence.  But  this  is  only  another  instance  of  the 
maxim,  "  Providence  helps  those  who  help  themselves." 
That  life  at  Town-End  had  encountered  and  overcome 
the  difficulty  before  the  help  came.  Again,  the  same 
moral  fortitude  appears  in  the  firmness  with  which  he 
kept  his  purpose,  and  the  industry  with  which  he 
wrought  it  out.  Undiscouraged  by  neglect,  undeterred 
by  obloquy  and  ridicule,  in  the  face  of  obstacles  that 
would  have  daunted  almost  any  other  man,  he  held  on 
his  way  unmoved,  and  wrought  out  the  gift  that  was  in 
him  till  the  work  was  complete.  Few  poets  have  ever 


84  WORDSWORTH: 

so  fully  expressed  the  thing  that  was  given  them  to 
utter.  And  the  result  has  been  that  he  has  bequeathed 
to  the  world  a  body  of  high  thought  and  noble  feel- 
ing which  will  continue  to  make  all  who  apprehend  it 
think  more  deeply  and  feel  more  wisely  to  the  end  of 
time. 

The  question  has  often  been  asked  how  far  Words- 
worth was  a  religious    poet ;  that  he  was  a  religious 
man  no  one  doubts.     In  his  earlier  poems  especially, 
as  in  "  Tintern  Abbey,"  and  others,  men  have  pointed 
to  passages,  and  said,  These  are  in  their  tendency  Pan- 
theistic.    The  supposition  that  Wordsworth  ever  main 
tained  a  Pantheistic  philosophy,  ever  held  a  deliberate 
theory  of  the  Divine  Being  as  impersonal,  is  contra 
dieted  both  by  many  an  express  declaration  of  his  own 
and  by  what  is  known  of  his  life. 

But  it  is  none  the  less  true  that,  though  he  never 
held  the  Pantheistic  doctrine,  the  presence  of  nature, 
when  he  was  in  the  heydey  of  imagination,  stirred  in 
him  what  is  called  the  Pantheistic  feeling  in  its  highest 
and  purest  form.  The  subject  is  a  deep  one,  and  to  do 
it  justice  would  require  not  a  few  sentences,  but  a  vol- 
ume. The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  outward  world, 
which  to  commonplace  minds  is  no  more  than  a  piece 
of  dead  mechanism,  is  in  reality  full  of  a  vast  all- 
pervading  life,  which  is  very  mysterious.  Not  to  be 
grasped  by  the  formulas  of  science,  this  life  is  appre- 
hended mainly  by  the  imagination,  and  by  those  men 
most  deeply  in  whom  imagination  is  most  ample  and 
profound.  Possessing  this  faculty,  larger  in  measure, 
and  more  genuine  in  quality,  than  any  man  since 
Shakespeare,  Wordsworth  felt  with  proportionate  in- 
tensity the  life  which  fills  all  nature.  In  her  presence 
he  felt  in  some  measure,  as  only  the  first  fathers  of  the 
Aryan  race  in  the  world's  infancy  felt,  the  — 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  POET.  85 

"  Something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man : 
A  motion  and  a  feeling  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

Comparative  mythology  is  only  now  deciphering 
traces  of  the  primeval  intuitions  of  a  something  Divine 
in  nature,  traces  which  lie  far  down  in  the  lowest  lay- 
ers of  the  world's  early  religions.  And  those  who  study 
'those  things  have  found  in  no  other  modern  poet  so 
many  thoughts  yielding  glimpses  into  that  morning  feel- 
ing for  nature  which  seems  to  have  vanished  with  the 
world's  childhood.  As  life  went  on  with  Wordsworth, 
the  visionary  gleam  grew  dimmer,  and  the  moral  faith 
grew  stronger,  so  that  his  later  poems  contain  less  of 
that  mystical  feeling  about  nature  which  is  the  peculiar 
charm  of  the  earlier  ones,  but  more  recognition  of  those 
truths  by  which  conscience  lives,  and  which  Christian- 
ity reveals.  That  he  has  not  clearly  bridged  over  the 
chasm,  has  not  fully  harmonized  the  earlier  with  the 
later  feeling,  must  be  admitted.  But  for  this  defect, 
this  limitation  of  insight,  who  is  he  that  has  a  right  to 
blame  him?  —  only  that  man  who  having  felt  as 
broadly  and  profoundly  the  infinite  life  I  allude  to,  has 
reconciled  it  with  higher  religious  truth,  and  taught 
men  so  to  do.  But  where  is  such  reconciliation  to  be 
found  ?  only  here  and  there  in  some  verses  of  the 
Psalms,  or  in  the  Prophecies  of  Isaiah ;  or  still  more 
in  brief  passages  of  the  Gospels  do  these  two  sides  of 
truth  seem  to  meet  in  harmony. 

In  Wordsworth's  treatment  of  human  nature  the 
Bame  question  meets  us  in  another  form.  In  "  The 
Prelude,"  and  other  poems  of  the  first  epoch,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  the  self-restorative  power  of  the  soul 


86  WORDSWORTH: 

seems  to  be  asserted,  and  the  sufficingness  of  nature  to 
console  the  wounded  spirit  is  implied  in  a  way  which 
Wordsworth,  if  distinctly  questioned,  would,  perhaps  at 
any  time,  certainly  in  his  later  years,  have  disavowed. 
That  he  was  himself  conscious  of  this  defect  may  be 
gathered  from  the  change  he  made  in  the  reflections 
with  which  the  story  of  Margaret,  in  "  The  Excursion," 
closes.  This  story  was  written  among  the  last  years 
of  last  century,  at  Racedown  or  Alfoxden.  Through 
all  the  early  editions  of  his  poems  it  stood  thus :  — 

"  The  old  man,  noting  this,  resumed,  and  said, 
'  My  friend !  enough  to  sorrow  you  have  given, 
The  purposes  of  wisdom  ask  no  more ; 
Be  wise  and  cheerful,  and  no  longer  read 
The  forms  of  things  with  an  unworthy  eye.'  " 

In  the  one-volume  edition  of  his  works,  which  ap- 
peared in  1845,  we  for  the  first  time  read  the  following 
addition,  inserted  after  the  third  line  of  the  above  :  — 

"  Nor  more  would  she  have  craved  as  due  to  One 
Who,  in  her  worst  distress,  had  ofttimes  felt 
The  unbounded  might  of  prayer ;  and  learned  with  soul 
Fixed  on  the  Cross,  that  consolation  springs, 
From  sources  deeper  far  than  deepest  pain, 
For  the  meek  Sufferer.     Why  then  should  we  read 
The  forms  of  things  with  an  unworthy  eye?  " 

A  little  further  on,  the  "  Wanderer  "  proceeds  to  say 
that  once  as  he  passed  that  way  the  ruined  cottage 
conveyed  to  his  heart  — 

"  So  still  an  image  of  tranquillity, 
So  calm  and  still,  and  looked  so  beautiful 
Amid  the  uneasy  thoughts  which  filled  my  mind, 
That  what  we  feel  of  sorrow  and  despair 
From  ruin  and  from  change,  and  all  the  grief 
The  passing  shows  of  Being  leave  behind, 
Appeared  an  idle  dream  that  could  not  live 
Where  meditation  was." 

Instead  of  the  last  line  and  a  half,  the  later  editions 
have  the  following :  — 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  87 

"  Appeared  an  idle  dream  that  could  maintain 
Nowhere  dominion  o'er  the  enlightened  spirit, 
Whose  meditative  sympathies  repose 
Upon  the  breast  of  faith." 

To  say  that  as  years  increased  Wordsworth's  faith 
in  the  vital  Christian  truth  grew  more  confirmed 
and  deep,  and  that  in  himself  were  fulfilled  his  own 
words  — 

"  Peace  settles  where  the  intellect  is  meek, 
The  faith  Heaven  strengthens  where  He  moulds  the  creed," 

is  only  to  say  that  he  was  growingly  a  good  man. 
This  growth  many  a  line  of  his  later  poems,  besides 
incidental  notices  in  his  letters,  and  other  memoranda 
of  his  nephew's  biography,  clearly  attests.  No  doubt 
the  wish  will  at  times  arise  that  the  unequaled  power 
of  spiritualizing  nature,  and  of  originating  tender  and 
solemn  views  of  human  life,  had,  for  the  sake  of  other 
men,  been  oftener  and  more  unreservedly  turned  on 
the  great  truths  of  Christian  faith.  When  such  a  re- 
gret does  arise,  it  is  but  fair  that  it  should  be  tempered 
by  remembering,  as  he  himself  urges,  that  "  his  works, 
as  well  as  those  of  other  poets,  should  not  be  considered 
as  developing  all  the  influences  which  his  own  heart  rec- 
ognized, but  rather  those  which  he  felt  able  as  an  artist 
to  display  to  advantage."  At  another  time  he  assured 
a  correspondent  that  he  had  been  averse  to  frequent 
mention  of  the  mysteries  of  Christian  faith,  not  because 
he  did  not  duly  feel  them,  but  because  he  felt  them  too 
deeply  to  venture  on  a  free  handling  of  them.  Above 
all,  if  he  has  not,  any  more  than  the  greatest  of  former 
poets,  done  all  that  our  hearts  desire,  let  us  be  thank- 
ful for  the  work  he  has  done. 

What  that  work  is,  the  great  religious  poet  of  the 
time,  himself  a  disciple  of  the  elder  bard,  hinted,  in 
the  words  with  which  he  dedicated  to  Wordsworth  his 


88  WORDSWORTH: 

Oxford  lectures  on  poetry :  "  Ut  animos  ad  sanctiora 
erigeret ; "  "  to  raise  our  minds  to  holier  things." 

Perhaps  I  cannot  better  sum  up  the  whole  matter 
than  by  adopting,  if  I  may,  the  words  of  a  correspond- 
ent. He  observes,  1st,  That  while  Wordsworth  spirit- 
ualizes the  outward  world  more  than  any  other  poet 
has  done,  his  feeling  for  it  is  essentially  manly.  Na- 
ture, he  always  insists,  gives  gladness  to  the  glad,  com- 
fort and  support  to  the  sorrowful.  2d,  There  is  the 
wondrous  depth  of  his  feeling  for  the  domestic  affec- 
tions, and  more  especially  for  the  constancy  of  them. 
3d,  He  must  be  considered  a  leader  in  that  greatest 
movement  of  modern  times — care  for  our  humbler 
brethren ;  his  part  being,  not  to  help  them  in  their  suf- 
ferings, but  to  make  us  reverence  them  for  what  they 
are,  what  they  have  in  common  with  us,  or  in  greater 
measure  than  ourselves.  These  are  the  tendencies 
breathed  from  every  line  he  wrote.  He  took  the  com- 
monest sights  of  earth,  and  the  homeliest  household 
affections,  and  made  you  feel  that  these,  which  men 
commonly  take  to  be  the  lowest  things,  are  indeed  the 
highest. 

If  he  seldom  ventures  within  the  inner  sanctuary,  he 
everywhere  leads  to  its  outer  court,  lifting  our  thoughts 
into  a  region  "  neighboring  to  heaven,  and  that  no  for- 
eign land."  If  he  was  not  universal  in  the  sense  in 
which  Shakespeare  was,  and  Goethe  aimed  to  be,  it 
was  because  he  was  smitten  with  too  deep  an  enthusi- 
asm for  those  truths  by  which  he  was  possessed.  His 
eye  was  too  intense,  too  prophetic  to  admit  of  his  look- 
ing at  life  dramatically.  In  fact,  no  poet  of  modern 
times  has  had  in  him  so  much  of  the  prophet.  In  the 
world  of  nature,  to  be  a  revealer  of  things  hidden,  the 
sanctifier  of  things  common,  the  interpreter  of  new  and 
unsuspected  relations,  the  opener  of  another  sense  in 


THE  MAN  AND   THE  POET.  89 

men ;  in  the  moral  world,  to  be  the  teacher  of  truths 
hitherto  neglected  or  unobserved,  the  awakener  of 
men's  hearts  to  the  solemnities  that  encompass  them, 
deepening  our  reverence  for  the  essential  soul,  apart 
from  accident  and  circumstance,  making  us  feel  more 
truly,  more  tenderly,  more  profoundly,  lifting  the 
thoughts  upward  through  the  shows  of  time  to  that 
which  is  permanent  and  eternal,  and  bringing  down  on 
the  transitory  things  of  eye  and  ear  some  shadow  of 
the  eternal,  till  we  — 

"  Feel  through  all  this  fleshly  dress 
Bright  shoots  of  everlastingness  "  — 

this  is  the  office  which  he  will  not  cease  to  fulfill,  as 
long  as  the  English  language  lasts.  What  earth's  far- 
off  lonely  mountains  do  for  the  plains  and  the  cities, 
that  Wordsworth  has  done  and  will  do  for  literature, 
and  through  literature  for  society  ;  sending  down  great 
rivers  of  higher  truth,  fresh  purifying  winds  of  feeling, 
to  those  who  least  dream  from  what  quarter  they  come. 
The  more  thoughtful  of  each  generation  will  draw 
nearer  and  observe  him  more  closely,  will  ascend  his 
imaginative  heights,  and  sit  under  the  shadow  of  his 
profound  meditations,  and,  in  proportion  as  they  do  so, 
will  become  more  noble  and  pure  in  heart, 


COLERIDGE. 


MOKE  than  enough  has  perhaps  been  said  in  dispar- 
agement of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  not  there- 
fore to  speak  more  evil  of  that  much  abused  time,  but 
merely  to  note  an  obvious  fact,  if  I  say  that  its  main 
tendency  was  towards  the  outward  and  the  finite.  Just 
freed  from  the  last  ties  of  feudalism,  escaped  too  from 
long  religious  conflicts  which  had  resulted  in  war  and 
revolution,  the  feelings  of  the  British  people  took  a 
new  direction ;  the  nation's  energies  were  wholly 
turned  to  the  pacific  working  out  of  its  material  and 
industrial  resources.  Let  us  leave  those  deep,  inter- 
minable questions,  which,  as  experience  has  shown, 
lead  only  to  confusion,  and  let  us  stick  to  plain,  obvious 
facts,  which  cannot  mislead,  and  which  yield  such  com- 
fortable results.  This  was  the  genius  and  temper  of 
the  generation  that  followed  the  Revolution  of  1688. 
Nor  was  there  wanting  a  man  to  give  definite  shape 
and  expression  to  this  tendency  of  the  national  mind. 
Locke,  a  shrewd  and  practical  man,  who  knew  the 
world,  furnished  his  countrymen  with  a  way  of  think- 
ing singularly  in  keeping  with  their  then  temper  ;  a 
philosophy  which,  discarding  abstruse  ideas,  fashioned 
thought  mainly  out  of  the  senses  ;  an  ethical  system 
founded  on  the  selfish  instincts  of  pleasure  and  pain ; 
and  a  political  theory  which,  instead  of  the  theocratic 
dreams  of  the  Puritans  or  the  divine  right  of  High- 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  91 

Churchmen,  or  the  historic  traditions  of  feudalism, 
grounded  government  on  the  more  prosaic  but  not  less 
unreal  phantasy  of  an  original  contract.  This  whole 
philosophy,  however  inconsistent  with  what  is  noblest 
in  British  history,  was  so  congenial  a  growth  of  the 
British  soil,  that  no  other  has  ever  struck  so  deep  a  root, 
or  spread  so  wide,  and  with  such  endearing  influence. 
This  way  of  thinking,  introduced  by  Locke  for  the 
purpose  of  moderating  the  pretensions  of  human 
thought,  came  to  be  believed  in  by  his  followers  as  its 
highest  achievement.  The  half  century  after  Locke 
was  no  doubt  full  of  mental  activity  in  certain  direc- 
tions. It  saw  Physical  Science  attain  its  highest  tri- 
umph in  the  Newtonian  discoveries  ;  History  studied 
after  a  certain  manner  by  votaries  more  numerous 
than  ever  before ;  and  the  new  science  of  Politi- 
cal Economy  created.  But  while  these  fields  were 
thronged  with  busy  inquirers,  and  though  Natural 
Theology  was  much  argued  and  discussed,  yet  from  the 
spiritual  side  of  all  questions,  from  the  deep  things  of 
the  soul,  from  men's  living  relations  to  the  eternal 
world,  educated  thought  seemed  to  turn  instinctively 
away.  The  guilds  of  the  learned,  as  by  tacit  consent, 
either  eschewed  these  subjects  altogether,  or,  if  they 
were  constrained  to  enter  on  them,  they  had  laid  down 
for  themselves  certain  conventional  limits,  beyond 
which  they  did  not  venture.  On  the  other  side  of 
these  lay  mystery,  enthusiasm,  fanaticism  —  spectres 
abhorred  of  the  wise  and  prudent.  It  is  a  striking 
proof  of  how  entirely  the  mechanical  philosophy  had 
saturated  the  age,  that  Wesley,  the  leader  of  the  great 
spiritual  counter-movement  of  last  century,  the  preacher 
of  divine  realities  to  a  generation  fast  bound  in  sense, 
yet  in  the  opening  of  his  sermon  on  Faith  indorses 
the  sensational  theory,  and  declares  that  to  man  in  his 


92  SAMUEL   TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

natural    condition    sense   is    the    only  iniet  of  knowl- 
edge. 

The  same  spirit  which  pervaded  the  philosophy  and 
theology  of  that  era  is  apparent  not  less  in  its  poetry 
and  literature.  Limitation  of  range,  with  a  certain 
perfectness  of  form,  contentment  with  the  surface  view 
of  things,  absence  of  high  imagination,  repression  of 
the  deeper  feelings,  man  looked  at  mainly  on  his  con- 
ventional side,  careful  descriptions  of  manners,  but  no 
open  vision,  —  these  are  the  prevailing  characteristics. 
Doubtless  the  higher  truth  was  not  even  then  left 
without  some  witnesses.  Butler  and  Berkeley  in  spec- 
ulation, Burns  and  Cowper  in  poetry,  Burke  in  polit- 
ical philosophy,  —  these  were  either  the  criers  in  the 
wilderness  against  the  idols  of  their  times,  or  the 
prophets  of  the  new  truth  that  was  being  born.  Men's 
thoughts  cannot  deal  earnestly  with  many  things  at 
once ;  and  each  age  has  its  own  work  assigned  it ; 
and  the  work  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  mainly 
one  of  utilitarian  understanding,  of  criticising  and  ques- 
tioning things  hitherto  believed,  of  active  but  narrow 
intelligence  divorced  from  imagination,  from  deep  feel- 
ing, from  reverence,  from  spiritual  insight.  And  when 
this  one-sided  work  was  done,  the  result  was  isolation, 
individualism,  self-will ;  the  universal  in  thought  lost 
sight  of,  the  universal  in  ethics  denied ;  everywhere, 
in  speculation  as  in  practice,  the  private  will  dominant, 
the  Universal  Will  forgotten.  To  exult  over  the  igno- 
rant past,  to  glory  in  the  wonderful  present,  to  have 
got  rid  of  all  prejudices,  to  have  no  strong  beliefs  ex- 
cept in  material  progress,  to  be  tolerant  of  all  tenden- 
cies but  fanaticism,  this  was  its  highest  boast.  And 
though  this  self-complacent  wisdom  received  some  rude 
shocks  in  the  crash  of  revolution  with  which  the  last 
century  closed,  and  though  the  soul  and  spirit  that  are 


SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  93 

in  man,  long  unheeded,  then  once  more  awoke  and 
made  themselves  heard,  that  one-sided  and  soulless 
intelligence,  if  weakened,  was  not  destroyed.  It  was 
carried  over  into  this  century  in  the  brisk  but  barren 
criticism  of  the  early  "  Edinburgh  Review."  And  at 
this  very  moment  there  are  symptoms  enough  on  every 
side  that  the  same  spirit,  after  having  received  a  tem- 
porary repulse,  has  once  more  regained  the  ascendant. 

The  same  manner  of  thought  which  we  have  at- 
tempted to  describe  as  it  existed  in  our  own  country, 
dominated  in  others  during  the  same  period.  So  well 
is  it  known  in  Germany  that  they  have  a  name  for  it, 
which  we  want.  They  call  it  by  a  term  which  means 
the  Illumination  or  Enlightenment,  and  they  have 
marked  the  notes  by  which  it  is  known.  Some  who 
are  deep  in  German  lore  tell  us  that  Europe  has  pro- 
duced but  one  power  really  counteractive  of  this  Illu- 
mination, or  tyranny  of  the  mere  understanding,  and 
that  is,  the  philosophy  which  began  with  Kant  and 
culminated  in  Hegel.  And  they  affect  no  small  scorn 
for  any  attempt  at  reaction  which  has  originated  else- 
where. Nevertheless,  at  the  turn  of  the  century,  there 
did  arise  men  nearer  home,  who  felt  the  defect  in  the 
thought  of  the  preceding  age,  and  did  much  to  supply 
it ;  who  strove  to  base  philosophy  on  principles  of 
universal  reason ;  and  who,  into  .thought  and  senti- 
ment, dwarfed  and  starved  by  the  effects  of  Enlighten- 
ment, poured  the  inspiration  of  soul  and  spirit.  The 
men  who  mainly  did  this  in  England  were  Wordsworth 
and  Coleridge.  These  are  the  native  champions  of 
spiritual  truth  against  the  mechanical  philosophy  of 
the  Illumination.  Of  the  former  of  the  two,  I  have 
already  spoken.  In  something  of  the  same  way  I 
propose  to  place  now  before  my  readers  some  account 
of  the  friend  of  Wordsworth,  whom  his  name  naturally 


84  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

recalls,  a  man  not  less  original  nor  remarkable  —  Sam- 
uel Taylor  Coleridge.  And  yet,  though  the  two  were 
friends,  and  shared  together  many  mental  sympathies, 
between  the  lives  and  characters  of  the  philosophic 
poet  and  the  poetic  philosopher  there  was  more  of 
contrast  than  of  likeness.  The  one,  robust  and  whole 
in  body  as  in  mind,  resolute  in  will,  and  single  in  pur- 
pose, knowing  little  of  books  and  of  other  men's 
thoughts,  and  caring  less  for  them,  set  himself,  with 
his  own  unaided  resources,  to  work  out  the  great  orig- 
inal vein  of  poetry  that  was  within  him,  and  stopped 
not,  nor  turned  aside,  till  he  had  fulfilled  his  task,  had 
enriched  English  literature  with  a  new  poetry  of  the 
deepest  and  purest  ore,  and  thereby  made  the  world 
forever  his  debtor.  The  other,  —  master  of  an  ampler 
and  more  varied  though  not  richer  field,  of  quicker 
sympathies,  less  self-sustained,  but  touching  life  and 
thought  at  more  numerous  points,  eager  to  know  all 
that  other  men  had  thought  and  known,  and  working 
as  well  on  a  basis  of  wide  erudition  as  on  his  own 
internal  resources,  but  with  a  body  that  did  him  griev- 
ous wrong,  that,  far  from  obeying,  frustrated  his  better 
aspirations,  and  a  will  faltering,  and  irresolute  to  fol- 
low out  the  behests  of  his  surpassing  intellect,  —  only 
drove  in  a  shaft  here  and  there  into  the  vast  mine  of 
thought  that  was  in  him,  and  died  leaving  samples 
rather  of  what  he  might  have  done,  than  any  full  and 
rounded  achievement,  —  yet  samples  so  rich,  so  varied, 
so  suggestive,  that  to  thousands  they  have  been  the 
quickeners  of  new  intellectual  life,  and  to  this  day  they 
stand  unequaled  by  anything  his  country  has  since 
produced.  In  one  point,  however,  the  friends  are 
alike.  They  both  turned  aside  from  professional  aims, 
devoted  themselves  to  pure  thought,  set  themselves  to 
counterwork  the  mechanical  and  utilitarian  bias  of 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  95 

their  time,  and  became  the  great  spiritualizers  of  the 
thought  of  their  countrymen,  the  fountain-heads  from 
which  has  flowed  most  of  what  is  high  and  unworldly 
and  elevating  in  the  thinking  and  speculation  of  the 
succeeding  age. 

It  is  indeed  strange,  that  of  Coleridge's  philosophy, 
once  so  much  talked  of,  and  really  so  important  in  its 
influence,  no  comprehensive  account  has  been  ever 
attempted.  The  only  attempt  in  this  direction  that  I 
know  of,  is  that  made  six  years  after  Coleridge's  death, 
and  now  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  by  one  who  has 
since  become  the  chief  expounder  of  that  philosophy 
which  Coleridge  spent  most  of  his  life  in  combating. 
In  a  well-known  essay,  Mr.  Mill,  while  fully  acknowl- 
edging that  no  other  Englishman,  save  only  his  own 
teacher  Bentham,  had  left  so  deep  an  impress  on  his 
age,  yet  turns  aside  from  making  a  full  survey  of 
Coleridge's  whole  range  of  thought,  precluded,  as  he 
confesses,  by  his  own  radical  opposition  to  Coleridge's 
fundamental  principles.  After  setting  forth  clearly  the 
antagonistic  schools  of  thought  which,  since  the  dawn 
of  philosophy,  have  divided  opinion  as  to  the  origin  of 
knowledge,  and  after  declaring  his  own  firm  adhesion 
to  the  sensational  school,  and  his  consequent  inability 
to  sympathize  with  Coleridge's  metaphysical  views, 
he  passes  from  this  part  of  the  subject,  and  devotes 
the  rest  of  his  essay  mainly  to  the  consideration  of 
Coleridge  as  a  political  philosopher.  This,  however, 
is  but  one,  and  that  by  no  means  the  chief  department 
of  thought,  to  which  Coleridge  devoted  himself.  Had 
Mr.  Mill  felt  disposed  to  give  to  the  other  and  more 
important  of  Coleridge's  speculations,  —  his  views  on 
metaphysics,  on  morals,  and  on  religion,  —  as  well  as 
to  his  criticisms  and  his  poetry,  the  same  masterly 
treatment  which  he  has  given  to  his  politics,  any 


96  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

further  attempt  in  that  direction  might  have  been 
spared.  But  it  is  characteristic  of  Mr.  Mill,  that, 
though  gifted  with  a  power  which  no  other  writer  of 
his  school  possesses,  of  entering  into  lines  of  thought, 
and  of  apparently  sympathizing  with  modes  of  feeling 
most  alien  to  his  own,  he  still,  after  the  widest  sweep 
of  appreciation,  returns  at  last  to  the  ground  from 
which  he  started,  and  there  entrenches  himself  within 
his  original  tenets  as  firmly  as  if  he  had  never  caught  a 
glimpse  of  those  other  and  higher  truths,  with  which 
his  own  principles  are  inconsistent. 

Before  entering  on  the  intellectual  result  of  Cole- 
ridge's labors,  and  inquiring  what  new  elements  he  has 
added  to  British  thought,  it  may  be  well  to  pause  for  a 
moment,  and  review  briefly  the  well-known  circum- 
stances of  his  life.  This  will  not  only  add  a  human 
interest  to  the  more  abstract  thoughts  which  follow, 
but  may  perhaps  help  to  make  them  better  understood. 
And  if,  in  contrast  with  the  life  of  "Wordsworth,  and 
with  its  own  splendid  promise,  the  life  of  Coleridge  is 
disappointing  even  to  sadness,  it  has  not  the  less  for 
that  a  mournful  interest ;  while  the  union  of  transcend- 
ent genius  with  infirmity  of  will  and  irregular  impulses, 
the  failure  and  the  penitential  regret,  lend  to  his  story 
a  humanizing,  even  a  tragic  pathos,  which  touches  our 
common  nature  more  closely  than  any  gifts  of  genius. 

The  vicarage  of  Ottery  St.  Mary's,  Devonshire, 
was  the  birthplace  and  early  home  of  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge.  As  in  Wordsworth  we  saw  that  his  whole 
character  was  in  keeping  with  his  native  Cumberland, 
—  the  robust  northern  yeoman,  only  touched  with 
genius,  —  so  the  character  of  Coleridge,  so  far  as  it 
had  any  local  hue,  seems  more  native  to  South  Eng- 
land. Is  it  fanciful  to  imagine  that  there  was  some- 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  97 

thing  in  that  character  which  accords  well  with  the 
soft  mild  air,  and  the  dreamy  loveliness  that  rests  on 
the  blue  coombes  and  sea-coves  of  South  Devon  ?  He 
was  born  on  the  21st  of  October  1772,  nearly  tw<J 
years  and  a  half  after  Wordsworth's  birth,  the  youngest 
child  of  ten  by  his  father's  second  marriage  with  Anne 
Bowden,  said  to  have  been  a  woman  of  strong  practical 
sense,  thrifty,  industrious,  very  ambitious  for  her  sons, 
but  herself  without  any  "  tincture  of  letters."  Plainly 
not  from  her,  but  wholly  from  his  father,  Samuel 
Taylor  took  his  temperament.  The  Rev.  John  Cole- 
ridge, sometime  head-master  of  the  Free  Grammar 
School,  afterwards  vicar  of  the  parish  of  Ottery  St. 
Mary's,  is  described  as,  for  his  age,  a  great  scholar, 
studious,  immersed  in  books,  altogether  unknowing  and 
regardless  of  the  world  and  its  ways,  simple  in  nature 
and  primitive  in  manners,  heedless  of  passing  events, 
and  usually  known  as  "  the  absent  man."  In  a  Latin 
grammar  which  he  wrote  for  his  pupils,  he  changed  the 
case  which  Julius  Caesar  named,  from  the  ablative  to 
the  Quale-quare-quidditive,  just  as  his  son  might  have 
done  had  he  ever  taken  to  writing  grammars.  He 
wrote  dissertations  on  portions  of  the  Old  Testament, 
with  the  same  sort  of  discursiveness  which  his  son 
afterwards  showed  on  a  greater  scale.  In  his  sermons 
he  used  to  quote  the  very  words  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures, and  the  country  people  would  exclaim  admir- 
ingly, "  How  fine  he  was  !  He  gave  us  the  very  words 
the  Spirit  spoke  in."  Of  his  absent  fits  and  his  other 
eccentricities,  many  stories  were  long  preserved  in  his 
own  neighborhood,  which  Coleridge  used  to  tell  to  his 
friends  at  Highgate,  till  the  tears  ran  down  his  face  at 
the  remembrance.  Among  other  well-known  stories, 
it  is  told  that  once  when  he  had  to  go  from  home  for 
several  days,  his  wife  packed  his  portmanteau  with  a 
7 


98  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

shirt  for  each  day,  charging  him  strictly  to  be  sure  and 
use  them.  On  his  return,  his  wife,  on  opening  the 
portmanteau,  was  surprised  to  find  no  shirts  in  it.  On 
asking  him  to  account  for  this,  she  found  that  he  had 
duly  obeyed  her  commands,  and  had  put  on  a  shirt 
every  day,  but  never  taken  off  one.  There  were  all 
the  shirts,  not  in  the  portmanteau,  but  on  his  own 
back.  "With  all  these  eccentricities,  he  was  a  good  and 
unworldly  Christian  pastor,  much  beloved  and  respected 
by  his  own  people.  Though  Coleridge  was  only  seven 
years  old  when  his  father  was  removed  by  a  sudden 
death,  he  remembered  him  to  the  last  with  deep  rev- 
erence and  love.  "  O  that  I  might  so  pass  away,  if, 
like  him,  I  were  an  Israelite  without  guile !  The 
image  of  my  father  —  my  revered,  kind,  learned,  simple- 
hearted  father — is  a  religion  to  me." 

During  his  childhood,  he  tells  us,  he  never  took  part 
in  the  plays  and  games  of  his  brothers,  but  sought 
refuge  by  his  mother's  side,  to  read  his  little  books  and 
listen  to  the  talk  of  his  elders.  If  he  played  at  all,  it 
was  at  cutting  down  nettles  with  a  stick,  fancying  them 
the  seven  champions  of  Christendom.  He  had,  he  says, 
the  simplicity  and  docility  of  a  child,  but  he  never 
thought  or  spoke  as  a  child. 

But  childhood  with  him,  such  as  it  was,  did  not  last 
long.  At  the  age  of  nine  he  was  removed  to  a  school 
in  the  heart  of  London,  Christ's  Hospital,  "  an  institu- 
tion," says  Charles  Lamb,  "  to  keep  those  who  yet  hold 
up  their  heads  in  the  world  from  sinking."  The  pres- 
entation to  this  charity  school,  no  doubt  a  great  thing 
for  the  youngest  of  so  many  sons,  was  obtained  through 
the  influence  of  Judge  Buller,  formerly  one  of  his 
father's  pupils.  "  O  what  a  change,"  writes  Coleridge 
in  after  years,  "  from  home  to  this  city  school ;  de- 
pressed, moping,  friendless,  a  poor  orphan,  half- 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  99 

starved ! "  Of  this  school,  Charles  Lamb,  the  school 
companion,  and  through  life  the  firm  friend  of  Coleridge, 
has  left  two  descriptions  in  his  delightful  Essays. 
Everything  in  the  world  has,  they  say,  two  sides  ;  cer- 
tainly Christ's  Hospital  must  have  had.  One  cannot 
imagine  any  two  things  more  unlike  than  the  picture 
which  Lamb  draws  of  the  school  in  his  first  essay,  and 
that  in  the  second.  The  first  sets  forth  the  look  which 
the  school  wore  to  Lamb  himself,  a  London  boy,  with 
his  family  close  at  hand,  ready  to  welcome  him  at  all 
hours,  to  send  him  daily  supplies  of  additional  food,  and 
with  influential  friends  among  the  trustees,  who,  if  he 
had  wrongs,  would  see  them  righted.  The  second 
shows  the  stepdame  side  it  turned  on  Coleridge,  an 
orphan  from  the  country,  with  no  friends  at  hand,  for- 
lorn, half  starved,  "for  in  those  days  the  food  of  the 
Blue-coats  was  cruelly  insufficient  for  those  who  had  no 
friends  to  supply  them."  Any  one  who  cares  to  see 
these  things  sketched  off  as  no  other  could  sketch  them, 
may  turn  to  Lamb's  essay,  "  Christ's  Hospital  Five-and- 
Thirty  Years  Ago."  "  To  this  late  hour  of  my  life,"  he 
represents  Coleridge  as  saying,  "  I  trace  impressions 
left  by  the  recollection  of  those  friendless  holidays. 
The  long  warm  days  of  summer  never  return,  but  they 
bring  with  them  a  gloom  from  the  haunting  memory  of 
those  whole-day  leaves,  when,  by  some  strange  arrange- 
ment, we  were  turned  out  for  the  livelong  day  upon 
our  own  hands,  whether  we  had  friends  to  go  to  or 
none.  I  remember  those  bathing  excursions  to  the 
New  River.  How  merrily  we  would  sally  forth  into 
the  fields,  and  strip  under  the  first  warmth  of  the  sun, 
and  wanton  like  young  dace  in  the  streams,  getting  us 
appetites  for  noon,  which  those  of  us  that  were  penniless 
(our  scanty  morning  crust  long  since  exhausted)  had 
not  the  means  of  allaying  ;  the  very  beauty  of  the  day, 


100  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

and  the  exercise  of  the  pastime,  and  the  sense  of  liberty 
setting  a  keener  edge  upon  them  !  How  faint  and  lan- 
guid, finally,  we  would  return  towards  nightfall  to  our 
desired  morsel,  half  rejoicing,  half  reluctant  that  the 
hours  of  our  uneasy  liberty  had  expired."  In  one  of 
these  bathing  excursions  Coleridge  swam  the  New 
River  in  his  clothes,  and  let  them  dry  on  his  back  in 
the  fields.  This  laid  the  first  seeds  of  those  rheumatic 
pains  and  that  prolonged  bodily  suffering  which  never 
afterwards  left  him,  and  which  did  so  much  to  frustrate 
the  large  promise  of  his  youth. 

In  the  lower  school  at  Christ's  the  time  was  spent 
in  idleness,  and  little  was  learnt.  But  even  then  Cole- 
ridge was  a  devourer  of  books,  and  this  appetite  was 
fed  by  a  strange  accident,  which,  though  often  told, 
must  here  be  repeated  once  again.  One  day  as  the 
lower  schoolboy  walked  down  the  Strand,  going  with 
his  arms  as  if  in  the  act  of  swimming,  he  touched  the 
pocket  of  a  passer-by.  "  What,  so  young  and  so 
wicked ! "  exclaimed  the  stranger,  at  the  same  time 
seizing  the  boy  for  a  pickpocket.  "  I  am  not  a  pick- 
pocket ;  I  only  thought  I  was  Leander  swimming  the 
Hellespont."  The  capturer,  who  must  have  been  a 
man  of  some  feeling,  was  so  'struck  with  the  answer, 
and  with  the  intelligence  as  well  as  simplicity  of  the 
boy,  that  instead  of  handing  him  over  to  the  police,  he 
subscribed  to  a  library,  that  Coleridge  might  get  thence 
in  future  his  fill  of  books.  In  a  short  time  he  read 
right  through  the  catalogue  and  exhausted  the  library. 
While  Coleridge  was  thus  idling  his  time  in  the  lower 
school,  Middleton,  an  elder  boy,  afterwards  writer  on 
the  Greek  article,  and  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  found  him 
one  day  sitting  in  a  corner  and  reading  Virgil  by  him- 
self, not  as  a  lesson,  but  for  pleasure.  Middleton  re- 
ported this  to  Dr.  Bowyer,  then  head-master  of  the 


SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  101 

school,  who,  on  questioning  the  master  of  the  lower 
school  about  Coleridge,  was  told  that  he  was  a  dull 
scholar,  could  never  repeat  a  single  rule  of  syntax,  but 
was  always  ready  to  give  one  of  his  own.  Henceforth 
Coleridge  was  under  the  head-master's  eye,  and  soon 
passed  into  the  upper  school  to  be  under  his  immediate 
care.  Dr.  Bowyer  was  one  of  the  stern  old  discipli- 
narians of  those  days,  who  had  boundless  faith  in  the 
lash.  Coleridge  was  one  of  those  precocious  boys  who 
might  easily  have  been  converted  into  a  prodigy,  had 
that  been  the  fashion  at  the  time.  But,  "Thank 
Heaven,"  he  said,  "  I  was  flogged  instead  of  flattered." 
He  was  so  ordinary  looking  a  boy,  with  his  great  black 
head,  that  Bowyer,  when  he  had  flogged  him  well, 
generally  bestowed  on  him  an  extra  cut,  "  For  you  are 
such  an  ugly  fellow."  When  he  was  fifteen,  Coleridge, 
in  order  to  get  rid  of  school,  wished  to  be  apprenticed 
to  a  shoemaker  and  his  wife,  who  had  been  kind  to 
him.  On  the  day  when  some  of  the  boys  were  to  be 
apprenticed  to  trades,  Crispin  appeared  and  sued  for 
Coleridge.  The  head-master,  on  hearing  the  proposal, 
and  Coleridge's  assent,  hurled  the  tradesman  from  the 
room  with  such  violence,  that  had  this  last  been  litig- 
iously  inclined,  he  might  have  sued  the  doctor  for  as- 
sault. And  so  Coleridge  used  to  joke,  "I  lost  the 
opportunity  of  making  safeguards  for  the  understand- 
ings of  those  who  will  never  thank  me  for  what  I  am 
trying  to  do  in  exercising  their  reason." 

While  Coleridge  was  at  school,  one  of  his  brothers 
was  attending  the  London  Hospital,  and  from  his  fre- 
quent visits  there  the  Blue-coat  boy  imbibed  a  love  of 
surgery  and  doctoring,  and  was  for  a  time  set  on  mak- 
ing this  his  profession.  He  devoured  English,  Latin, 
and  Greek  books  on  medicine  voraciously,  and  had  by 
heart  a  whole  Latin  medical  dictionary.  But  this 


102  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

dream  gave  way,  or  led  on  to  a  rage  for  metaphysics, 
which  metaphysical  reading  finally  landed  him  in  Vol- 
taire's "  Philosophical  Dictionary,"  after  perusing  which 
he  sported  infidel.  When  this  new  turn  reached 
Bowyer's  ears,  he  sent  for  Coleridge.  "  So,  sirrah  ! 
you  are  an  infidel,  are  you  ?  Then  I'll  flog  your  infi- 
delity out  of  you."  So  saying,  the  doctor  administered 
the  severest,  and,  as  Coleridge  used  to  say,  the  only 
just  flogging  he  ever  received. 

Of  this  stern  scholastic  Lamb  has  left  the  following 
portrait :  — 

"  He  had  two  wigs,  both  pedantic,  but  of  different 
omen.  The  one  serene,  smiling,  powdered,  betokening 
a  mild  day.  The  other,  an  old,  discolored,  unkempt, 
angry  caxon,  denoting  frequent  and  bloody  execution. 
Woe  to  the  school  when  he  made  his  morning  appear- 
ance in  his  '  Passy,'  or  passionate  wig.  Nothing  was 
more  common  than  to  see  him  make  a  headlong  entry 
into  the  school-room  from  his  inner  recess  or  library, 
and  with  turbulent  eye,  singling  out  a  lad,  roar  out, 
'  'Ods  my  life,  sirrah ! '  his  favorite  adjuration,  '  I  have 
a  great  mind  to  whip  you,'  then  with  as  sudden  a  re- 
tracting an  impulse  fling  back  into  his  lair,  and  then, 
after  a  cooling  relapse  of  some  minutes  (during  which 
all  but  the  culprit  had  totally  forgotten  the  context), 
drive  headlong  out  again,  piecing  out  his  imperfect 
sense,  as  if  it  had  been  some  devil's  litany,  with  the 
expletory  yell,  '  and  I  will,  too.'  In  his  gentler  moods 
he  had  resort  to  an  ingenious  method,  peculiar,  for 
what  I  have  heard,  to  himself,  of  whipping  a  boy  and 
reading  the  '  Debates '  at  the  same  time  —  a  paragraph 

and  a  lash  between Perhaps,"  adds  Lamb, 

"  we  cannot  dismiss  him  better  than  with  the  pious 
ejaculation  of  Coleridge "  (the  joke  was  no  doubt 
Lamb's  own)  "  when  he  heard  that  his  old  master  was 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  103 

on  his  death-bed,  '  Poor  J.  B.,  may  all  his  faults  be  for- 
given, and  may  he  be  wafted  to  bliss  by  little  cherub 
boys,  all  head  and  wings,  with  no  bottoms  to  reproach 
his  sublunary  infirmities.'  " 

How  much  of  all  this  may  be  Lamb's  love  of  fun  one 
cannot  say.  Coleridge  always  spoke  of  Dr.  Bowyer 
with  grateful  affection.  In  his  literary  life  he  speaks 
of  having  enjoyed  the  inestimable  advantage  of  a  very 
sensible,  though  severe  master ;  one  who  taught  him  to 
prefer  Demosthenes  to  Cicero,  Homer  and  Theocritus 
to  Virgil,  and  Virgil  to  Ovid  ;  who  accustomed  hia 
pupils  to  compare  Lucretius,  Terence,  and  the  purer 
poems  of  Catullus,  not  only  with  "  the  Roman  poets  of 
the  silver,  but  even  with  those  of  the  Augustan  era, 
and  on  grounds  of  plain  sense  and  universal  logic,  to 
see  the  superiority  of  the  former  in  the  truth  and  na- 
tiveness  both  of  their  thoughts  and  diction."  This 
doctrine  was  wholesome  though  rare  in  those  days,  not 
so  common  even  now,  so  much  so  that  some  have  sup- 
posed that  in  these  and  other  lessons  with  which  Cole- 
ridge credited  Dr.  Bowyer,  he  was  but  reflecting  back 
on  his  master  his  own  afterthoughts. 

While  Coleridge  was  being  thus  wholesomely  drilled 
in  the  great  ancient  models,  his  own  poetic  power 
began  to  put  forth  some  buds.  Up  to  the  age  of  fifteen, 
his  school  verses  were  not  beyond  the  mark  of  a  clever 
schoolboy.  At  sixteen,  however,  the  genius  cropped 
out.  The  first  ray  of  it  appears  in  a  short  allegory, 
written  at  the  latter  age,  and  entitled  "  Real  and  Im- 
aginary Time."  The  opening  lines  are  — 

"  On  the  wide  level  of  a  mountain's  head, 
I  knew  not  where;  but  'twas  some  faery  place." 

In  that  short  piece,  short  and  slight  as  it  is,  there  is  a 
real  touch  of  his  after  spirit  and  melody. 


104  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

During  those  years  when  he  was  in  the  upper  school, 
metaphysics  and  controversial  theology  struggled  for 
some  time  with  poetry  for  the  mastery  ;  but  at  last, 
under  the  combined  influence  of  a  first  love  and  of 
Bowles's  poems,  he  was  led  clear  of  the  bewildering 
maze,  and  poetry  for  some  years  was  paramount.  It 
may  seem  strange  now  that  Bowles's  sonnets  and  early 
poems,  which  Coleridge  then  met  with  for  the  first 
time,  should  have  produced  on  him  so  keen  an  impres- 
sion of  novelty.  But  so  it  often  happens  that  what 
was,  on  its  first  appearance,  quite  original,  when  we 
look  back  upon  it  in  later  years,  after  it  has  been  ab- 
sorbed into  the  general  taste,  seems  to  lose  nearly  all 
its  freshness.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  powerful 
effect  that  Bowles  had  on  Coleridge's  dawning  powers  ; 
that  he  opened  the  young  poet's  eyes  to  what  was  false 
and  meretricious  in  the  artificial  school  from  Pope  to 
Darwin,  and  made  him  feel  that  here,  for  the  first  time 
in  contemporary  poetry,  natural  thought  was  combined 
with  natural  diction  —  heart  reconciled  with  head.  To 
those  who  care  for  these  things,  it  would  be  worth 
while  to  turn  to  the  first  chapter  of  Coleridge's  "  Liter- 
ary Life,"  and  see  there  the  first  fermenting  of  his 
poetic  taste  and  principles.  But  during  those  last 
school  years,  while  his  mind  was  thus  expanding,  and 
while  his  existence  was  a  more  tolerable,  in  some  re- 
spects even  a  happy  one,  he  was  suffering  severely  in 
that  body,  which  throughout  life  was  such  a  clog  to 
him.  Full  half  his  time  from  seventeen  to  eighteen 
was  passed  in  the  sick-ward,  afflicted  with  jaundice  and 
rheumatic  fever,  inherent  it  may  be  in  his  constitution, 
but  doubtless  not  lessened  by  those  swimmings  over  the 
New  River  in  his  clothes.  But,  above  these  sufferings, 
which  were  afterwards  so  heavily  to  weigh  him  down, 
Coleridge,  during  his  early  years,  was  enabled  by  buoy- 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  105 

ancy  of  heart  to  rise,  and  to  hide  them  from  ordinary 
observers.  Having  dwelt  thus  long  on  Coleridge's 
school-days,  because  they  are  very  fully  recorded,  and 
contain  as  in  miniature  both  the  strength  and  the  weak- 
ness of  the  full-grown  man,  I  may  close  them  with 
Lamb's  description  of  Coleridge  as  he  appeared  in  the 
retrospect  of  Lamb's  school  companions  :  — 

"  Come  back  to  my  memory  like  as  thou  wert  in  the 
dayspring  of  my  fancies,  with  hope  like  a  fiery  column 
before  thee  —  the  dark  pillar  not  yet  turned — Sam- 
uel Taylor  Coleridge,  Logician,  Metaphysician,  Bard ! 
How  have  I  seen  the  casual  passer  through  the  clois- 
ters stand  still,  entranced  with  admiration  (while  he 
weighed  the  disproportion  between  the  speech  and  the 
garb  of  the  young  Mirandula),  to  hear  thee  unfold,  in 
thy  deep  and  sweet  intonations,  the  mysteries  of  lam- 
blichu?  or  Plotinus  ;  for  even  then  thou  waxedst  not 
pale  at  such  philosophic  draughts ;  or  reciting  Homer 
in  his  Greek,  or  Pindar  ;  while  the  walls  of  the  old 
Grey  Friars  reechoed  the  accents  of  the  inspired 
charity  boyi" 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  conceive  two  school-times 
more  unlike  than  this  of  Coleridge  at  Christ's,  pent  up 
in  the  heart  of  London  city,  and  that  of  Wordsworth 
at  Hawkshead,  free  of  Esthwaite  Mere,  and  all  the 
surrounding  solitudes.  And  yet  each,  as  well  in  habits 
and  teaching  as  in  outward  scenery  and  circumstance, 
answers  strangely  to  the  character  and  after  lives  of 
the  two  friends. 

Coleridge  entered  Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  in  Feb- 
ruary 1791,  just  a  month  after  Wordsworth  had  quitted 
the  University.  On  neither  of  the  poets  had  their 
University  much  effect.  For  neither  was  that  the 
place  and  the  hour.  Coleridge  for  a  time,  under  the 
influence  of  his  elder  friend  Middleton,  was  industrious, 


106  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

read  hard,  and  obtained  the  prize  for  the  Greek  Sap- 
phic ode.  It  was  on  some  subject  about  slavery,  and 
was  better  in  thought  than  in  Greek.  Afterwards  he 
tried  for  the  Craven  Scholarship,  in  which  contest  his 
rivals  were  Keat,  afterwards  head-master  of  Eton, 
Bethell,  who  became  an  M.  P.  for  Yorkshire,  and  But- 
ler, the  future  head  of  Shrewsbury  School  and  Bishop 
of  Lichfield.  The  last-named  won  the  scholarship. 
Out  of  sixteen  or  seventeen  competitors,  Coleridge  was 
selected  along  with  the  above  three ;  but  he  was  not 
the  style  of  man  to  come  out  great  in  University  com- 
petitions. He  had  not  that  exactness  and  readiness 
which  are  needed  for  those  trials  ;  and  he  wanted  en- 
tirely the  competitive  ardor  which  is  with  many  so 
powerful  an  incentive.  After  this  there  is  no  more 
notice  of  regular  work.  His  heart  was  elsewhere  — 
in  poetry,  with  Bowles  for  guide ;  in  philosophy,  with 
Hartley,  who  had  belonged  to  his  own  college ;  plung- 
ing into  politics  too,  which  then  filled  all  ardent  young 
minds  even  to  intoxication.  For  the  French  Revolu- 
tion was  then  in  its  first  frenzy,  promising  liberty,  vir- 
tue, regeneration  to  the  old  and  outworn  world.  Into 
that  vortex  of  boundless  hope  and  wild  delirium  what 
high-minded  youth  could  keep  from  plunging?  Not 
Coleridge.  "  In  the  general  conflagration,"  he  writes, 
"  my  feelings  and  imagination  did  not  remain  unkin- 
dled.  I  should  have  been  ashamed  rather  than  proud 
of  myself  if  they  had."  Pamphlets  were  pouring 
from  the  press  on  the  great  subjects  then  filling  all 
men's  minds  ;  and  whenever  one  appeared  from  the 
pen  of  Burke  or  other  man  of  power,  Coleridge,  who 
had  read  it  in  the  morning,  repeated  it  every  word  to 
his  friends  gathered  round  their  small  supper-tables. 
Presently  one  Frend,  a  Fellow  of  Jesus  College,  being 
accused  of  sedition,  of  defamation  of  the  Church  of 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR    COLERIDGE.  107 

England,  and  of  holding  Unitarian  doctrines,  was  tried 
by  the  authorities,  condemned,  and  banished  the  Uni- 
versity. Coleridge  sided  zealously  with  Frend,  not 
only  from  the  sympathy  which  generous  youth  always 
feels  for  the  persecuted,  but  also  because  he  had  him- 
self adopted  those  Unitarian  and  other  principles  for 
which  Frend  suffered.  Hence  arose  a  growing  disaf- 
fection, which  must  have  weakened  his  attachment  ',o 
his  University.  Other  circumstances  supervened,  which 
in  his  second  year  of  residence,  brought  his  Cambridge 
career  to  a  sudden  close. 

The  loss  of  Middleton,  his  trusty  friend  and  guide, 
who,  failing  in  the  final  examination,  quitted  the  Uni- 
versity without  obtaining  a  fellowship  ;  and  the  press- 
ure of  some  college  debts,  less  than  £100,  incurred 
through  his  own  inexperience,  drove  Coleridge  into 
despondency.  He  went  to  London,  and  wandered 
hopelessly  about  the  streets.  At  night  he  sat  down  on 
the  steps  of  a  house  in  Chancery  Lane,  where,  being 
soon  surrounded  by  swarms  of  beggars,  real  or  feigned, 
he  emptied  to  them  the  little  money  that  remained  in 
his  pockets.  In  the  morning,  seeing  an  advertisement 
—  "Wanted,  Recruits  for  the  loth  Light  Dragoons," 
he  said  to  himself,  "  Well,  I  have  hated  all  my  life  sol- 
diers and  horses  ;  the  sooner  I  cure  myself  of  that  the 
better."  He  enlisted  as  Private  Comberbach,  a  name, 
the  truth  of  which  he  himself  was  wont  to  say,  his 
horse  must  have  fully  appreciated.  A  rare  sight  it 
must  have  been  to  see  Coleridge  perched  on  some  hard- 
set,  rough-trotting  trooper,  and  undergoing  his  first  les- 
sons in  the  riding-school,  with  the  riding  master  shout- 
ing out  to  the  rest  of  the  awkward  squad,  "  Take  care 
of  that  Comberbach ;  he'll  ride  over  you."  For  the 
grooming  of  his  horse  and  other  mechanical  duties 
Coleridge  was  dependent  on  the  kindness  of  his  com- 


108  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

rades,  with  whom  he  was  a  great  favorite.  Their  ser- 
vices he  repaid  by  writing  all  their  letters  to  their  wives 
and  sweethearts.  At  last  the  following  sentence,  written 
up  in  the  stable  under  his  saddle,  "  Eheu,  quam  infortu- 
nii  miserrimum  est  fuisse  felicem,"  revealed  his  real 
condition  to  a  captain  who  had  Latin  enough  to  trans- 
late the  words,  and  heart  enough  to  feel  them.  About 
the  same  time  an  old  Cambridge  acquaintance  passing 
through  Reading  on  his  way  to  join  his  regiment,  met 
Coleridge  in  the  street  in  dragoon  uniform,  stopped  him 
when  he  would  have  passed,  and  informed  his  friends. 
After  about  four  months'  service  he  was  bought  off, 
returned  to  Cambridge,  stayed  there  but  a  short  time, 
and  finally  left  in  June  1794,  without  taking  a  degree. 
Then  followed  what  may  be  called  his  Bristol  period. 
This  included  his  first  friendship  with  Southey,  their 
dream  of  emigration,  their  marriage,  Coleridge's  first 
attempts  at  authorship,  and  his  many  ineffectual  plans 
for  settling  what  he  used  to  call  the  Bread  and  Cheese 
Question.  On  leaving  Cambridge  he  had  gone  to 
Oxford,  and  there  met  with  Southey,  still  an  under- 
graduate at  Balliol,  whose  friendship,  quickly  formed, 
became  one  of  the  main  hinges  on  which  Coleridge's 
after  life  turned.  Their  tastes  and  opinions  on  religion 
and  politics  were  then  at  one,  though  their  characters 
were  widely  different.  Southey,  with  far  less  genius 
than  Coleridge,  possessed  that  firmness  of  will,  that 
definite  aim  and  practical  wisdom,  the  want  of  which 
were  the  bane  of  Coleridge's  life.  Southey's  high  and 
pure  disposition  and  consistent  conduct,  combined  with 
much  mental  power  and  literary  acquirement,  made 
Coleridge  feel,  as  he  had  not  done  before,  the  duty 
and  dignity  of  bringing  actions  into  accordance  with 
principles,  both  in  word  and  deed.  In  after  years 
Southey  was  to  Coleridge  a  faithful  monitor  in  word, 


SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  109 

and  a  friend  firm  and  self-denying  in  deed.  In  moral- 
ity of  action,  it  must  be  owned  that  he  rose  as  much 
above  Coleridge,  as  in  genius  he  fell  below  him.  But 
at  their  first  meeting,  pure  and  high-minded  as  Southey 
was,  he  had  not  so  fixed  his  views,  or  so  systematically 
ordered  his  life,  as  he  afterwards  did.  He  too,  like 
Coleridge  and  Wordsworth,  had  been  stirred  at  heart 
by  the  moral  earthquake  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Enthusiastically  democratic  in  politics  and  Unitarian 
hi  religion,  he  at  once  responded  to  the  day-dream  of 
Pantisocracy,  which  Coleridge  opened  to  him  at  Ox- 
ford. This  was  a  plan  of  founding  a  community  in 
America,  where  a  band  of  brothers,  cultivated  and 
pure-minded,  were  to  have  all  things  in  common,  and 
selfishness  was  to  be  unknown.  The  common  land 
was  to  be  tilled  by  the  common  toil  of  the  men ;  the 
wives,  for  all  were  to  be  married,  were  to  perform  all 
household  duties  ;  and  abundant  leisure  was  to  remain 
over  for  social  intercourse,  or  to  pursue  literature,  or 
in  more  pensive  moods  — 

"  Soothed  sadly  by  the  dirgeful  wind, 
Muse  on  the  sore  ills  they  had  left  behind." 

The  banks  of  the  Susquehanna  were  to  be  this  earthly 
paradise,  chosen  more  for  the  melody  of  the  name  than 
for  any  ascertained  advantages.  Indeed,  they  hardly 
seem  to  have  known  exactly  where  their  paradise  lay. 
Southey  soon  left  Balliol,  and  the  two  friends  went 
to  Bristol,  Southey's  native  town,  there  to  prepare  for 
carrying  out  the  Pantisocratic  dream.  Such  visions 
have  been  not  only  dreamed  since  then,  but  acted  on 
by  enthusiastic  youths,  and  the  result  leaves  no  reason 
to  regret  that  the  project  of  Coleridge  and  Southey 
never  got  further  than  being  a  dream.  Want  of 
money  was,  as  usual,  the  immediate  cause  of  the  fail- 


110  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

ure ;  everything  else  had  been  provided  for,  but  when 
it  came  to  the  point  it  was  found  that  neither  the  two 
leaders,  nor  any  of  the  other  friends  who  had  embarked 
in  the  scheme,  had  money  enough  to  pay  their  passage 
to  America.  Southey  was  the  first  to  see  how  matters 
stood,  and  to  recant.  At  this  Coleridge  was  greatly 
disgusted,  and  gave  vent  to  his  disappointment  in  no 
measured  language.  The  scheme  was  abandoned  early 
in  1795,  and  the  two  young  poets,  having  been  for 
»ome  time  in  love  with  two  sisters  of  a  Bristol  family, 
were  married,  Coleridge  in  October  of  that  year  to 
Sarah  Fricker,  and  Southey  six  weeks  later  to  her 
sister  Edith. 

Marriage,  of  course,  brought  the  money  question 
home  to  Coleridge  more  closely  than  Pantisocracy 
had  done.  The  three  or  four  following  years  were 
occupied  with  attempts  to  solve  it.  But  his  ability 
was  not  of  the  money  making  order,  nor  did  his  habits, 
natural  or  acquired,  give  even  such  ability  as  he  had 
a  fair  chance  in  the  toil  for  bread.  First  he  tried 
lecturing  to  the  Bristol  folks  on  the  political  topics  of 
the  tune,  and  on  religious  questions.  But  either  the 
lectures  did  not  pay,  or  Coleridge  did  not  stick  to 
them  steadily,  so  they  were  soon  given  up,  and  after- 
wards published  as  "  Conciones  ad  populum,"  Cole- 
ridge's first  prose  work.  Attacking  with  equal  vehe- 
mence Pitt,  the  great  minister  of  the  day,  and  his  oppo- 
nents, the  English  Jacobins,  Coleridge  showed  in  this 
his  earliest,  as  in  his  latest  works,  that  he  could  not 
be  warranted  to  run  quietly  in  the  harness  of  any 
party,  and  that  those  who  tried  to  set  him  to  this  work 
were  sure  of  an  upset.  Coleridge's  next  enterprise 
was  the  publication  of  a  weekly  miscellany ;  the  con- 
tents were  to  range  over  nearly  the  same  subjects  as 
those  now  discussed  in  the  best  weeklies,  and  the  aim 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  Ill 

was  to  be,  as  announced  in  the  motto,  that  "  all  may 
know  the  truth,  and  that  the  truth  may  make  us  free." 
But  powerful  as  he  would  have  been  as  a  contributor, 
Coleridge  was  not  the  man  to  conduct  such  an  under- 
taking, least  of  all  to  do  so  single-handed.  The  most 
notable  thing  about  "The  Watchman"  was  the  tour 
he  made  through  the  Midland  county  towns  with  a 
naming  prospectus,  "Knowledge  is  power,"  to  try  the 
political  atmosphere.  It  was  during  this  tour  that 
Coleridge  encountered  the  Birmingham  tallow-chan- 
dlei-,  whom  he  describes  with  hair  like  candlewicks,  and 
face  pinguinitescent,  for  it  was  a  melting  day  with  him. 
After  Coleridge  had  harangued  the  man  of  dips  for 
half  an  hour,  and  run  through  every  note  in  the  whole 
gamut  of  eloquence,  now  reasoning,  now  declaiming, 
now  indignant,  now  pathetic,  on  the  state  of  the  world 
as  it  is,  compared  with  what  it  should  be  ;  at  the  first 
pause  in  the  harangue  the  tallow-chandler  interposed : 
"  And  what  might  the  cost  be  ?  "  "  Only  fourpence 
(0  the  anti-climax,  the  abysmal  bathos  of  that  four- 
pence  !)  —  only  fourpence,  sir,  each  number."  "  That 
comes  to  a  deal  of  money  at  the  end  of  a  year ;  and 
how  much  did  you  say  there  was  to  be  for  the  money  ? " 
"  Thirty -two  pages,  sir !  large  octavo,  closely  printed." 
"  Thirty  and  two  pages  ?  Bless  me !  except  what  I 
does  in  a  family  way  on  the  Sabbath,  that's  more  than 
I  ever  reads,  sir,  all  the  year  round.  I  am  as  great 
a  one  as  any  man  in  Brummagem,  sir,  for  liberty  and 
truth,  and  all  that  sort  of  things,  but  as  to  this  (no 
offense,  I  hope,  sir)  I  must  beg  to  be  excused." 

Notwithstanding  this  repulse,  Coleridge  returned  to 
Bristol  triumphant  with  above  a  thousand  subscribers' 
names,  having  left  on  the  minds  of  all  who  heard  his 
wonderful  conversation  an  impression  that  survived 
long  after  "The  Watchman"  was  forgotten.  The 


112  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

first  number  appeared  on  the  1st  of  March,  the  tenth 
and  last  on  the  13th  of  May,  1796.  From,  various 
causes,  delay  in  publishing  beyond  the  fixed  day,  of- 
fense given  to  the  religious  subscribers  by  an  essay 
against  fast-days,  to  his  democratic  patrons  by  inveigh- 
ing against  Jacobinism  and  French  philosophy,  to  the 
Tories  by  abuse  of  Pitt,  to  the  Whigs  by  not  more 
heartily  backing  Fox,  the  subscription  list  rapidly 
thinned,  and  he  was  glad  to  close  the  concern  at  a  dead 
loss  of  money  to  himself,  not  to  mention  his  wasted 
labor.  Though  this  failure  was  to  him  a  very  serious 
matter,  he  could  still  laugh  heartily  at  the  ludicrous 
side  of  it.  He  tells  how  one  morning,  when  he  had 
risen  earlier  than  usual,  he  found  the  servant  girl  light- 
ing the  fire  with  an  extravagant  quantity  of  paper. 
On  his  remonstrating  against  the  waste,  "La,  sir!" 
replied  poor  Nanny,  "  why,  it  is  only  Watchmen." 

The  third  of  the  Bristol  enterprises  was  the  publica- 
tion of  his  "  Juvenile  Poems,"  in  the  April  of  1796, 
while  "  The  Watchman  "  was  still  struggling  for  exist- 
ence. For  the  copyright  of  these  he  received  thirty 
guineas,  from  Joseph  Cottle,  a  Bristol  bookseller,  who 
to  his  own  great  credit  undertook  to  publish  the  works 
of  Southey,  of  Coleridge,  and  of  Wordsworth,  at  a 
time  when  those  higher  in  the  trade  would  have  noth- 
ing to  say  to  them.  If  Cottle  long  afterwards,  when 
their  names  had  waxed  great,  published  a  somewhat 
gossiping  book  of  reminiscences,  and  gave  to  the  pub- 
lic many  petty  details  which  a  wiser  man  would  have 
withheld,  it  should  always  be  remembered,  to  his  honor, 
that  he  showed  true  kindness  and  liberality  towards 
these  men,  especially  towards  Coleridge,  when  he  greatly 
needed  it,  and  that  he  had  a  genuine  admiration  of 
their  genius  for  its  own  sake,  quite  apart  from  its  mar- 
ketable value.  No  doubt,  if  any  one  wishes  to  see 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  113 

the  seamy  side  of  genius,  he  will  find  it  in  the  letters 
and  anecdotes  of  Coleridge  preserved  in  Cottle's  book. 

Other  plans  for  a  livelihood  were  ventilated  during 
his  Bristol  sojourn,  such  as  writing  for  the  "  Morning 
Chronicle "  and  taking  private  pupils,  but  as  these 
came  to  nought,  I  need  only  notice  one  other  line  in 
which  Coleridge  at  this  time  occasionally  employed 
himself,  not  without  some  thought  of  making  it  a  per- 
manent profession.  We  have  seen  that  before  leaving 
Cambridge  he  had  become  a  Unitarian,  and  so  he  con- 
tinued till  about  the  time  of  his  visit  to  Germany. 
While  he  was  in  Bristol  he  was  engaged  from  time  to 
time  to  preach  in  the  Unitarian  chapels  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. The  subjects  which  he  there  discussed  seem 
to  have  been  somewhat  miscellaneous,  and  the  reports 
of  his  success  vary.  Nothing  can  be  more  dreary,  if 
it  were  not  grotesque,  than  Cottle's  description  of  his 
first  appearance  as  a  preacher  in  a  Unitarian  chapel 
in  Bath.  On  the  appointed  Sunday  morning,  Cole- 
ridge, Cottle,  and  party  drove  from  Bristol  to  Bath  in  a 
post-chaise.  Coleridge  mounted  the  pulpit  in  blue  coat 
and  white  waistcoat,  and  for  the  morning  service,  choos- 
ing a  text  from  Isaiah,  treated  his  audience  to  a  lecture 
against  the  Corn  Laws  ;  in  the  afternoon,  he  gave  them 
another  on  the  Hair-Powder  Tax.  The  congregation 
on  the  latter  occasion  consisted  of  seventeen,  of  whom 
several  walked  out  of  the  chapel  during  the  service. 
The  party  returned  to  Bristol  disheartened,  Coleridge 
from  a  sense  of  failure,  the  others  with  a  dissatisfying 
sense  of  a  Sunday  wasted.  Compare  this  with  Haz- 
litt's  account  of  his  appearance  some  time  afterwards 
before  a  Birmingham  congregation :  — 

"  It  was  in  January,  1798,  that  I  rose  one  morning 
before  daylight,  to  walk  ten  miles  in  the  mud  to  hear 
this  celebrated  person  preach.  Nevar,  the  longest  day 
8 


114  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

I  have  to  live,  shall  I  have  such  another  walk,  as  that 
cold,  raw,  comfortless  one.  When  I  got  there  the 
organ  was  playing  the  100th  Psalm,  and  when  it  was 
done,  Mr.  Coleridge  arose  and  gave  out  his  text,  "  He 
departed  again  into  a  mountain  himself  alone."  As 
he  gave  out  this  text,  his  voice  rose  like  a  steam  of  rich 
distilled  perfumes ;  and  when  he  came  to  the  two  last 
words,  which  he  pronounced  loud,  deep,  and  distinct,  it 
seemed  to  me,  who  was  then  young,  as  if  the  sound 
had  echoed  from  the  bottom  of  the  human  heart,  and 
as  if  that  prayer  might  have  floated  in  solemn  silence 
through  the  universe.  The  preacher  then  launched 
into  his  subject,  like  an  eagle  dallying  with  the  wind. 
The  sermon  was  upon  peace  or  war,  upon  Church  and 
State  —  not  their  alliance,  but  their  separation ;  on  the 
spirit  of  the  world  and  the  spirit  of  Christianity  —  not 
as  the  same,  but  as  opposed  to  one  another.  He 
talked  of  those  who  had  inscribed  the  Cross  of  Christ 
on  banners  dripping  with  human  gore.  He  made  a 
poetical  and  pastoral  excursion,  and,  to  show  the  fatal 
effects  of  war,  drew  a  striking  contrast  between  the 
simple  shepherd-boy,  driving  his  team  a-field,  or  sitting 
under  the  hawthorn,  piping  to  his  flock  as  though  he 
should  never  be  old ;  and  the  same  poor  country  lad, 
crimped,  kidnapped,  brought  into  town,  made  drunk  at 
an  alehouse,  turned  into  a  wretched  drummer-boy,  with 
his  hair  sticking  on  end  with  powder  and  pomatum,  a 
long  cue  at  his  back,  and  tricked  out  in  the  finery  of 
the  profession  of  blood. 

"  '  Such  were  the  notes  our  own  loved  poet  sung.' 

"  And  for  myself,  I  could  not  have  been  more  de- 
lighted if  I  had  heard  the  music  of  the  spheres. 
Poetry  and  Philosophy  had  met  together,  Truth  and 
Genius  had  embraced,  under  the  eye  and  sanction  of 
Religion.  This  was  even  beyond  my  hopes." 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  115 

Which  of  the  two  was  right  in  his  estimate  of 
Coleridge's  preaching,  Cottle  or  Hazlitt?  Or  were 
both  right,  and  is  the  difference  to  be  accounted  for  by 
Coleridge,  like  most  men  of  genius,  having  his  days 
now  above  himself,  now  below  ?  With  one  more  pas- 
sage from  Hazlitt,  descriptive  of  Coleridge's  talk  at 
that  time,  I  may  close  his  Bristol  life:  — 

"  He  is  the  only  person  I  ever  knew  who  answered 
to  the  idea  of  a  man  of  genius.  He  is  the  only  person 
from  whom  I  ever  learned  anything.  There  is  only 
one  thing  he  might  have  learned  from  me  in  return, 
but  that  he  has  not.  He  was  the  first  poet  I  ever 
knew.  His  genius  at  that  time  had  angelic  wings, 
and  fed  on  manna.  He  talked  on  forever ;  and  you 
wished  him  to  talk  on  forever.  His  thoughts  did  not 
seem  to  come  with  labor  and  effort;  but  as  if  borue  on 
the  gusts  of  genius,  and  as  if  the  wings  of  imagination 
lifted  him  off  his  feet.  His  voice  rolled  on  the  ear 
like  a  pealing  organ,  and  its  sound  alone  was  the  music 
of  thought.  His  mind  was  clothed  with  wings  ;  and 
raised  on  them  he  lifted  philosophy  to  heaven.  In  his 
descriptions,  you  then  saw  the  progress  of  human 
happiness  and  liberty  in  bright  and  never  ending  suc- 
cession, like  the  steps  of  Jacob's  ladder,  with  airy 
shapes  ascending  and  descending.  And  shall  I  who 
heard  him  then,  listen  to  him  now?  Not  I !  That 
spell  is  broke ;  that  time  is  gone  forever  ;  that  voice  is 
heard  no  more:  but  still  the  recollection  comes  rush- 
ing by,  with  thoughts  of  long  past  years,  and  rings  in 
my  ears  with  never-dying  sound." 

It  is  pitiful  to  turn  from  such  high-flown  descrip- 
tions to  the  glimpses  of  poverty  and  painful  domestic 
cares  with  which  his  letters  of  this  date  abound.  Over 
these  one  would  gladly  draw  the  veil.  Whoso  wishes 
to  linger  on  them  may  turn  him  to  Cottle.  There  are 


116  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

many  more  incidents  of  this  time  which  I  can  but 
name :  his  residence  for  some  months  in  a  rose-covered 
cottage  in  the  neighboring  village  of  Clevedon  ;  the 
birth  of  his  first  son,  whom  he  named  Hartley,  for  love 
of  that  philosopher  whom  Coleridge  then  admired  as 
the  wisest  of  men  ;  his  complete  reconciliation  with 
Southey  on  the  return  of  the  latter  from  Portugal. 
One  little  entry,  in  a  letter  of  November  1796,  is  sadly 
memorable  as  the  first  appearance  of 

«  The  little  rift  within  the  lute, 
Which  soon  will  make  the  music  mute." 

He  complains  of  a  violent  neuralgic  pain  in  the  face, 
which  for  the  time  was  like  to  overpower  him.  "  But," 
he  writes,  "  I  took  between  sixty  and  seventy  drops 
of  laudanum,  and  sopped  the  Cerberus."  That  sop 
was  soon  to  become  the  worst  Cerberus  of  the  two. 

It  was  early  in  1797  that  Coleridge  removed  with 
his  family  from  Bristol,  and  pitched  his  tent  in  the 
village  of  Nether  Stowey,  under  the  green  hills  of 
Quantock.  One  of  the  kindest  and  most  hospitable 
of  his  friends,  Mr.  Poole,  had  a  place  hard  by ;  and 
Coleridge  having  in  June  made  a  visit  to  Wordsworth 
at  Racedown,  persuaded  this  young  poet,  and  his 
scarcely  less  original  sister,  to  adjourn  thence  to  the 
neighboring  mansion  of  Alfoxden.  With  such  friends 
for  daily  intercourse,  with  the  most  delightful  country 
for  walks  on  every  side,  and  with  apparently  fewer  em- 
barrassments, Coleridge  here  enjoyed  the  most  genial 
and  happy  years  that  were  ever  vouchsafed  to  his 
changeful  existence.  "  Wherever  we  turn  we  have 
woods,  smooth  downs,  and  valleys  with  small  brooks 
running  down  them,  through  green  meadows  to  the 
sea.  The  hills  that  cradle  these  valleys  are  either 
covered  with  ferns  and  bilberries  or  oak  woods.  Walks 


SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  117 

extend  for  miles  over  the  hill-tops,  the  great  beauty  of 
•which   is    their    wild    simplicity;    they   are    perfectly 
smooth,  without   rocks."     Over  these    green    hills  of 
Quantock  the  two  youug   poets    wandered   for   hours 
together,  rapt  in  fervid  talk ;  Coleridge  no  doubt  the 
chief  speaker,  Wordsworth  more  silent,  not  less  sug- 
gestive.    Never   before    or   since   have    these   downs 
heard  such  high  converse.     "  His  society  I  found  an 
invaluable  blessing,  and  to  him  I  looked  up  with  equal 
reverence  as  a  poet,  a  philosopher,  and  a  man."     So 
wrote  Coleridge  in  after  years.     By  this  time  Words- 
worth had  given  himself  wholly  to  poetry  as  his  work 
for   life.     Alfoxden    saw    the    birth    of  many   of  the 
happiest,    most   characteristic   of    his    shorter   poems. 
Coleridge  had  some   years   before  this,  when  he  first 
fell    in    with    Wordsworth's    "  Descriptive    Sketches," 
found  even  in  these  the  opening  of  a  new  vein.     He 
himself,  too,  had  from  time  to  time  turned  aside  from 
more  perplexing  studies,  and   found  poetry  to   be  its 
own    exceeding    great   reward.     But   in   this    Nether 
Stowey  time  Coleridge  came  all  at  once  to  his  poetic 
manhood.       Whether  it    was    the    freedom   from    the 
material  ills    of  life   which  he   found  in  the  aid  and 
kindly  shelter  of  Mr.  Poole,  or  the  secluded  beauty  of 
the  Quantock,  or  the  converse  with  Wordsworth,  or  all 
combined,  there  cannot  be  any  doubt  that  this  was,  as 
it  has  been  called,  his  annus  mirabilis,  his  poetic  prime. 
This  was  the  year  of  "  Genevieve,"  "  The  Dark  Ladie," 
"  Kubla  Khan,"  "  France,"  the  lines  to  Wordsworth  on 
first  hearing  "  The  Prelude  "  read  aloud,  the  "  Ancient 
Mariner,"  and  the    first    part  of  "  Christabel,"  not  to 
mention  many  other  poems  of  less  mark.    The  occasion 
which  called  forth  the  two  latter  poems,  to  form  part 
of  a  joint  volume  with  Wordsworth,  has  been  already 
noticed.     If  Coleridge  could  only  have  maintained  the 


118  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

high  strain  he  then  struck,  with  half  the  persistency  of 
his  brother  poet,  posterity  might  perhaps  have  had 
more  reason  to  regret  that  he  should  ever  have  turned 
to  other  subjects.  During  all  his  time  at  Nether 
Stowey  he  kept  up  a  fire  of  small  letters  to  Cottle  in 
Bristol,  at  one  time  about  poems  or  other  literary 
projects,  at  another  asking  Cottle  to  find  him  a  servant- 
maid,  "simple  of  heart,  physiognomically  handsome, 
and  scientific  in  vaccimulgence ! "  When  they  had 
composed  poems  enough  to  form  one  or  more  joint 
volumes,  Cottle  is  summoned  from  Bristol  to  visit 
them.  Cottle  took  Wordsworth  in  his  gig  from  Bristol 
to  Alfoxden,  picking  up  Coleridge  at  Nether  Stowey. 
They  had  brought  the  viands  for  their  dinner  with 
them  in  the  gig :  a  loaf,  a  stout  piece  of  cheese,  and  a 
bottle  of  brandy.  As  they  neared  their  landing  place, 
a  beggar  whom  they  helped  with  some  pence,  returned 
their  kindness  by  helping  himself  to  the  cheese  from 
the  back  of  the  gig.  Arrived  at  the  place  Coleridge 
unyoked  the  horse,  dashed  down  the  gig-shafts  with  a 
jerk  that  rolled  the  brandy  bottle  from  the  seat,  and 
broke  it  to  pieces  before  their  eyes.  Then  Cottle  set 
to  unharnessing  the  horse,  but  could  not  get  off  the 
collar.  Wordsworth  next  essayed  it,  with  no  better 
success.  At  last  Coleridge  came  to  the  charge,  and 
worked  away  with  such  violence  that  he  nearly  thrawed 
the  poor  horse's  head  off.  He  too  was  forced  to  desist, 
with  a  protest  that  "  the  horse's  head  must  have  grown 
since  the  collar  was  put  on."  While  the  two  poets 
and  their  publisher  were  standing  thus  nonplussed,  the 
servant  girl  happened  to  pass  through  the  stable  yard, 
and  seeing  their  perplexity,  exclaimed,  "  La,  master 
you  don't  go  about  the  work  the  right  way ;  you 
should  do  it  like  this."  So  saying,  she  turned  the 
collar  upside  down,  and  slipped  it  off  in  a  trice. 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  119 

Then  came  the  dinner,  "a  superb  brown  loaf,  a  dish 
of  lettuces,  and,  instead  of  the  brandy,  a  jug  of  pure 
water."  The  bargain  was  struck,  and  Cottle  under- 
took the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of  the  famous 
"  Lyrical  Ballads,"  which  appeared  in  Midsummer, 
1798.  About  the  same  time  the  two  Messrs.  Wedge- 
wood  settled  on  Coleridge  £150  a  year  for  life,  which 
made  him  think  no  more  of  Unitarian  chapels,  and 
enabled  him  to  undertake,  what  he  had  for  some  time 
desired,  a  continental  tour.  In  September  of  that 
year  the  two  poets  bade  farewell,  Wordsworth  and  his 
sister  to  Alfoxden,  Coleridge  to  Nether  Stowey,  and 
together  all  three  set  sail  for  Hamburg. 

So  ended  the  Nether  Stowey  time,  to  Coleridge  the 
brief  blink  of  a  poetic  morning  which  had  no  noon  ;  to 
Wordsworth  but  the  hopeful  dawn  of  a  day  which  com- 
pletely fulfilled  itself. 

Landed  at  Hamburg,  Wordsworth  was  interpreter, 
as  he  had  French,  Coleridge  nothing  but  English  and 
Latin.  After  an  interview  with  the  aged  poet  Klop- 
stock,  the  two  young  poets  parted  company,  Words- 
worth, with  his  sister,  settling  at  Goslar,  there  to  com- 
pose, by  the  German  fire-stoves,  the  poems  on 
"Matthew,"  "Nutting,"  "Ruth,"  "The  Poet's  Epi- 
taph," and  others,  hi  his  happiest  vein ;  while  Coleridge 
made  for  Ratzeburg,  where  he  lived  for  four  months  hi 
a  pastor's  family,  to  learn  the  language,  and  then 
passed  on  to  Gottingen  to  attend  lectures  and  consort 
with  German  students  and  professors.  Among  the  lec- 
tures were  those  of  Blumenbach  on  Natural  History, 
while  Eichhorn's  lectures  on  the  New  Testament  were 
repeated  to  him  from  notes  by  a  student  who  had  him- 
self taken  them  down.  Wordsworth  kept  sending 
Coleridge  the  poems  he  was  throwing  off  during  this 
prolific  winter,  and  Coleridge  replied  in  letters  full  of 


120  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

hope  that  their  future  homes  might  be  in  the  same 
neighborhood :  "  Whenever  I  spring  forward  into  the 
future  with  noble  affections,  I  always  alight  by  your 
side."  His  whole  time  in  Germany  seems  to  have 
overflowed  with  exuberant  spirits  and  manifold  life. 
"  Instead  of  troubling  others  with  my  own  crude  no- 
tions, I  was  better  employed  in  storing  my  head  with 
the  notions  of  others.  I  made  the  best  use  of  my  time 
and  means,  and  there  is  no  period  of  my  life  to  which 
I  look  back  with  such  unmingled  satisfaction." 

He  had  passed  within  a  zone  of  thought  new  to  him- 
self, and  up  to  that  time  quite  unknown  in  England; 
one  of  the  great  intellectual  movements  which  occur 
but  rarely,  and  at  long  intervals,  in  the  world's  history. 
The  philosophic  genius  of  Germany  which  awoke  in 
Kant  during  the  latter  part  of  last  century  was  an  im- 
pulse the  most  original,  the  most  far-reaching,  and  the 
most  profound,  which  Europe  has  seen  since  the  Ref- 
ormation. It  has  given  birth  to  linguistic  science,  has 
recast  metaphysics,  and  has  penetrated  history,  poetry, 
and  theology.  For  good  or  for  evil,  it  must  be  owned 
that,  under  the  shadow  of  this  great  movement,  the 
world  is  now  living,  and  is  likely  to  live  more  or  less 
for  some  time  to  come.  Perhaps  we  should  not  call  it 
German  philosophy,  for  philosophy  is  but  one  side  of  a 
great  power  which  is  swaying  not  only  the  world's 
thought,  but  those  feelings  which  are  the  parents  of  its 
thoughts,  as  well  as  of  its  actions  and  events.  If  asked 
to  give  in  a  sentence  the  spirit  of  this  great  movement, 
most  men  hi  this  country  would  feel  constrained  to  an- 
swer, as  the  great  German  sage  is  reported  to  have  an- 
swered Cousin,  "  These  things  do  not  sum  themselves  up 
in  single  sentences."  If  any  one  still  insists  on  a  form- 
ula, he  must  seek  it  from  some  adroit  French  critic  who 
will  clench  the  whole  thing  for  him  hi  a  phrase,  or  at 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  121 

most  a  sentence.  Into  this  great  atmosphere,  define  it 
how  you  will,  then  seething  and  fermenting,  it  was  that 
Coleridge  passed.  Most  of  his  fourteen  months  were, 
no  doubt,  given  to  acquiring  the  language,  but  he  could 
not  mingle  with  those  professors  and  students  without 
catching  some  tincture  of  that  way  of  thought  which 
was  then  busy  in  all  brains.  It  was  not,  however,  till 
after  his  return  to  England  that  he  studied  Kant  and 
other  German  philosophers.  His  name  will  ever  be 
historically  associated  with  the  first  attempt  to  intro- 
duce these  new  thoughts  to  the  English  mind,  which, 
having  been  for  more  than  a  century  steeped  to  reple- 
tion in  Lockeism,  was  now  sadly  in  need  of  other  ali- 
ment. Some  have  reviled  Coleridge  because  he  did 
not  know  that  whole  cycle  of  thought  so  fully  as  they 
suppose  that  they  themselves  do.  As  if  anything  so 
all-embracing  as  German  philosophy  can  be  taken  in 
completely  at  once  ;  as  if  the  first  delver  in  any  mine 
ever  yet  extracted  the  entire  ore.  But  to  such  impugn- 
ers  it  were  enough  to  say,  We  shall  listen  with  more 
patience  to  your  accusations,  when  you  have  done  one 
half  as  much  to  bring  home  the  results  of  German 
thought  to  the  educated  British  mind  now,  as  Coleridge 
did  in  his  day. 

The  first  fruits,  however,  of  his  newly  acquired  Ger- 
man were  poetic,  not  philosophic.  Arriving  in  London 
in  November,  1799,  he  set  to  work  to  translate 
Schiller's  "  Wallenstein,"  and  accomplished  in  three 
weeks  what  many  competent  judges  regard  as,  notwith- 
standing some  inaccuracies,  the  finest  translation  of  any 
poem  into  the  English  language.  It  is  a  free  •  transla- 
tion, with  here  and  there  some  lines  of  Coleridge's  own 
added  where  the  meaning  seemed  to  him  to  require  it. 
At  the  time,  the  translation  fell  almost  dead  from  the 
press,  but  since  that  day  it  has  come  to  be  prized  aa  it 
deserves. 


122  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

In  the  autumn  of  1799,  Coleridge  joined  Wordsworth 
on  a  tour  among  the  lakes,  that  tour  on  which  the  lat- 
ter fixed  on  the  Town-End  of  Grasmere  for  his  future 
home.  This  was  Coleridge's  first  sight  of  English 
mountains.  Rydal  and  Grasmere,  he  says,  gave  him 
the  deepest  delight;  Haweswater  kept  his  eyes  dun 
with  tears.  During  the  last  days  of  the  year,  Words- 
worth, with  his  sister,  walked  over  the  Yorkshire  fells, 
and  settled  in  their  new  home.  From  this  time  for- 
ward, Coleridge  wrote  for  the  "  Morning  Post,"  off  and 
on,  till  the  close  of  1802.  About  Coleridge's  contri- 
butions to  that  paper,  there  has  been  maintained,  since 
his  death,  a  debate  which  hardly  concerns  us  here. 
Enough  to  say,  that  having  originally  agreed  with  Fox 
in  opposing  the  French  war  in  1800,  and  having  at 
that  time  written  violently  against  Pitt  in  the  "  Morn- 
ing Post"  and  elsewhere,  he  was  gradually  separated 
from  the  leader  of  the  opposition  by  the  independent 
view  he  took  against  Napoleon,  as  the  character  of  the 
military  despot  gradually  unfolded  itself.  Coleridge 
passed  over  to  the  Tories,  as  he  himself  says,  "  only  in 
the  sense  in  which  all  patriots  did  so  at  that  time,  by 
refusing  to  accompany  the  Whigs  in  their  almost  perfid- 
ious demeanor  towards  Napoleon.  Anti-ministerial 
they  styled  their  policy,  but  it  was  really  anti-national. 
It  was  exclusively  in  relation  to  the  great  feud  with 
Napoleon  that  I  adhered  to  the  Tories.  But  because 
this  feud  was  so  capital,  so  earth-shaking,  that  it  occu- 
pied all  hearts,  and  all  the  councils  of  Europe,  suffer- 
ing no  other  question  almost  to  live  hi  the  neighbor- 
hood, hence  it  happened  that  he  who  joined  the  Tories 
in  this  was  regarded  as  their  ally  in  everything.  Do- 
mestic politics  were  then  in  fact  forgotten." 

But  though  he  was  constrained  to  come  round  to 
Pitt's  foreign  policy,  he  never,  that  I  know,  recanted 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  123 

the  invectives  with  which  he  assailed  that  minister  in 
1800.  There  is  still  extant,  among  "  The  Essays  on 
his  Own  Times,"  a  well-known  character  of  Pitt  from 
the  pen  of  Coleridge,  which  appeared  in  the  "  Morning 
Post."  Coleridge,  in  general  fair-minded  and  far-see- 
ing, had  one  or  two  strange  and  unaccountable  antip- 
athies to  persons,  which  Wilson  mentions,  and  this 
against  Pitt  was  perhaps  the  strongest  and  the  blindest. 
On  the  day  that  the  character  of  Pitt  appeared,  the 
character  of  Bonaparte  was  promised  for  "  to-morrow," 
but  that  to-morrow  never  arrived.  What  that  portrait 
would  have  been  may  perhaps  be  gathered  from  a  par- 
agraph on  the  same  subject,  contained  in  Appendix  B 
to  the  first  "  Lay  Sermon."  The  will,  dissevered  from 
conscience  and  religion,  "  becomes  Satanic  pride  and 
rebellious  self-idolatry  in  the  relations  of  the  spirit  to 
itself,  and  remorseless  despotism  relatively  to  others  ; 
the  more  hopeless  as  the  more  obdurate  by  the  subju- 
gation of  sensual  impulses,  by  its  superiority  to  toil  and 
pain  and  pleasure  ;  in  short,  by  the  fearful  resolve  to 
find  in  itself  alone  the  one  absolute  motive  of  action, 
under  which  all  other  motives  from  within  and  from 

without  must  be  either  subordinated  or  crushed 

This  is  the  character  which  Milton  has  so  philosoph- 
ically, as  well  a  ssublimely,  embodied  in  the  Satan  of 
his  '  Paradise  Lost '  —  Hope  in  which  there  is  no 
cheerfulness ;  steadfastness  within  and  immovable  re- 
solve, with  outward  restlessness  and  whirling  activity  ; 
violence  with  guile ;  temerity  with  cunning ;  and,  as 
the  result  of  all,  interminableness  of  object  with  per- 
fect indifference  of  means  —  these  are  the  marks  that 
have  characterized  the  masters  of  mischief,  the  liberti- 
cides,  and  mighty  hunters  of  mankind,  from  Nimrod  to 
Bonaparte By  want  of  insight  into  the  possibil- 
ity of  such  a  character,  whole  nations  have  been  so  far 


124  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

duped  as  to  regard  with  palliative  admiration,  instead 
of  wonder  and  abhorrence,  the  Molochs  of  human  na- 
ture, who  are  indebted  for  the  larger  portion  of  their 
meteoric  success  to  their  total  want  of  principle,  and 
who  surpass  the  generality  of  their  fellow-creatures  in 
one  act  of  courage  only,  that  of  daring  to  say  with  their 
whole  heart,  '  Evil,  be  thou  my  good ! '  All  system  is 
so  far  power ;  and  a  systematic  criminal,  self-consistent 
and  entire  in  wickedness,  who  entrenches  villainy  within 
villainy,  and  barricades  crime  by  crime,  has  removed  a 
world  of  obstacles  by  the  mere  decision  that  he  will 
have  no  other  obstacles  but  those  of  force  and  brute 
matter." 

It  must  have  been  early  in  1801  that  Coleridge 
turned  his  back  for  a  time  on  London  and  the  "  Morn- 
ing Post,"  to  transfer  his  family  to  the  Lakes,  and  set- 
tle them  at  Greta  Hall.  The  landlord  of  it  was  a  Mr. 
Jackson,  the  "  Master "  of  Wordsworth's  poem  of  the 
"  Wagoner."  From  this  house,  destined  to  become 
Southey's  permanent  earthly  home,  Coleridge  writes 
to  Southey,  then  in  Portugal,  this  description  of  it : 
"  In  front  we  have  a  giant's  camp,  an  encamped  army 
of  tent-like  mountains,  which,  by  an  inverted  arch, 
gives  a  view  of  another  vale  [meaning,  I  suppose,  the 
range  of  peaks  which  close  the  head  of  the  Newlands' 
vale].  On  our  right  the  lovely  vale  and  wedge-shaped 
lake  of  Bassenthwaite  ;  and  on  our  left,  Derwentwater 
and  Lodore  in  full  view,  and  the  fantastic  mountains 
of  Borrowdale.  Behind  us  the  massy  Skiddaw,  smooth, 
green,  high,  with  two  chasms,  and  a  tent-like  ridge  in 
the  larger.  A  fairer  scene  you  have  not  seen  hi  all 
your  wanderings."  There  Southey  soon  joined  Cole- 
ridge, and  the  two  kindred  families  shared  Greta  Hall 
together,  a  common  home  with  two  doors. 

Coleridge   was   now   at   the   full   manhood   of  his 


SAM  GEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  125 

powers ;  he  was  about  thirty,  and  the  time  was  come 
when  the  marvelous  promise  of  youth  ought  to  have 
had  its  fulfillment.  He  was  surrounded  with  a  coun- 
try which,  if  any  could,  might  have  inspired  him,  with 
friends  beside  him  who  loved  and  were  ready  in  any 
way  to  aid  him.  But  the  next  fifteen  years,  the  prime 
strength  of  his  life,  when  his  friends  looked  for  fruit, 
and  he  himself  felt  that  it  was  due,  were  all  but  unpro- 
ductive. The  "  Ode  to  Dejection,"  written  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Lake  time,  and  "  Youth  and  Age," 
written  just  before  its  close,  with  two  or  three  more 
short  pieces,  are  all  his  poetry  of  this  period,  and  they 
fitly  represent  the  sinking  of  heart  and  hope  which 
were  now  too  habitual  with  him.  What  was  the  cause 
of  all  this  failure  ?  Bodily  disease,  no  doubt,  in  some 
measure,  and  the  languor  of  disease  depressing  a  will 
by  nature  weak  and  irresolute.  But  more  than  these, 
there  was  a  worm  at  the  root  that  was  sapping  his 
powers,  and  giving  fatal  effect  to  his  natural  infirmities. 
This  process  had  already  set  in,  but  it  was  some  years 
yet  before  the  result  was  fully  manifest.  During 
these  first  years  at  the  Lakes,  though  Greta  was  his 
home,  Coleridge,  according  to  De  Quincey,  was  more 
often  to  be  found  at  Grasmere.  This  retirement,  for 
such  it  then  was,  had  for  him  three  attractions,  a  love- 
liness more  complete  than  that  of  Derwentwater,  an 
interesting  and  pastoral  people  not  to  be  found  at 
Keswick,  and  above  all,  the  society  of  Wordsworth. 
It  was  about  this  time  that  there  arose  the  name  of 
the  Lake  School,  a  mere  figment  of  the  "  Edinburgh 
Review,"  which  it  invented  to  express  its  hatred  of 
three  original  writers,  each  unlike  the  other,  and  all 
agreeing  only  in  one  thing,  their  opposition  to  the  hard 
and  unimaginative  spirit  which  was  then  the  leading 
characteristic  of  the  "  Edinburgh."  How  unlike 


126  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  really  were  in  their  way 
of  thinking  and  working  may  be  now  clearly  seen  by 
comparing  the  works  they  have  left  behind.  And  as 
for  Southey  and  Wordsworth,  they  had  but  little  in 
common,  and  were  not  even  on  friendly  terms  till  more 
than  ten  years  after  the  Lake  School  was  first  talked 
of.  Likely  enough  Coleridge  found  Wordsworth  more 
original  and  suggestive  than  Southey.  But  the  single- 
ness and  wholeness  of  moral  purpose  which  inspired 
the  lives  of  both  his  friends,  must  have  been  to  Cole- 
ridge a  continual  rebuke ;  and  Southey,  as  being  a  near 
relation,  and  a  closer  observer  of  the  domestic  unhap- 
piness  caused  by  Coleridge's  neglects,  had  perhaps 
added  to  the  silent  reproof  of  his  own  example  more 
open  remonstrance. 

In  August,  1803,  Wordsworth  and  his  sister  visited 
Coleridge  at  Keswick,  and  took  him  with  them  on  that 
first  tour  in  Scotland  of  which  Wordsworth,  and  his 
sister  too,  have  left  such  imperishable  memorials. 
Most  of  the  way  they  walked,  from  Dumfries  up 
Nithsdale,  over  Crawfordmuir  by  the  Falls  of  Clyde, 
and  so  on  to  Loch  Lomond.  Coleridge  being  in  poor 
health  and  worse  spirits  than  usual,  and  somewhat  too 
much  in  love  with  his  own  dejection,  left  his  two  com- 
panions somewhere  about  Loch  Lomond  to  return 
home.  But  either  at  this  or  some  other  time  not 
specially  recorded,  he  must  have  got  further  north,  for 
we  find  him,  in  his  second  "  Lay  Sermon,"  speaking  of 
his  solitary  walk  from  Loch  Lomond  to  Inverness,  and 
describing  the  impression  made  upon  him  both  by  the 
sight  of  the  recently  unpeopled  country,  and  by  the 
story  he  heard  from  an  old  Highland  widow  near  Fort 
Augustus,  of  the  wrongs  she  herself,  her  kinsfolk  and 
her  neighbors,  had  suffered  in  those  sad  clearances. 
But  if  Scotland  woke  in  him  no  poetry  on  this  his  first 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  127 

nnd  perhaps  only  visit,  and  if  Scotchmen  have  had 
some  severe  things  said  of  them  by  him,  they  can  af- 
ford to  pardon  them.  The  land  is  none  the  less  beau- 
tiful for  not  having  been  sung  by  him ;  and  if  from 
the  people  he  could  have  learned  some  of  that  shrewd- 
ness of  which  they  have  enough  and  to  spare,  his  life 
would  have  been  other  and  happier  than  it  was. 

If  the  Lake  country  had  suited  Coleridge's  constitu- 
tion, and  if  he  had  turned  to  advantage  the  scenery  and 
society  it  afforded,  in  no  part  of  England,  it  might 
seem,  could  he  have  found  a  fitter  home.  But  the 
dampness  of  the  climate  brought  out  so  severely  the 
rheumatism  from  which  he  had  suffered  since  boyhood, 
that  he  was  forced  to  seek  a  refuge  from  it  on  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  —  a  doubtful  measure,  it 
is  said,  for  one  in  his  state  of  nerves.  Arriving  at 
Malta  in  April,  1804,  he  soon  became  known  to  the 
Governor,  Sir  Alexander  Ball,  and  during  a  change  of 
secretaries  Coleridge  served  for  a  time  as  a  temporary 
secretary.  The  official  task-work,  and  not  less  the  offi- 
cial parade,  expected  from  him,  which  he  never  at- 
tempted to  maintain,  were  highly  distasteful  to  him, 
and  he  gladly  resigned,  as  soon  as  a  new  secretary 
came  out.  He  made,  however,  the  friendship  of  the 
Governor,  whose  character  he  has  painted  glowingly  in 
"  The  Friend."  Whether  Sir  Alexander  Ball  merited 
this  high  encomium  I  cannot  say,  but  Professor  Wilson 
mentions  that  Coleridge's  craze  for  the  three  B's,  Ball, 
Bell,  and  Bowyer,  was  a  standing  joke  among  his 
friends.  The  health  he  sought  at  Malta  he  did  not 
find.  The  change  at  first  seemed  beneficial,  but  soon 
came  the  reaction,  —  "  limbs  like  lifeless  tools,  violent 
internal  pains,  laboring  and  oppressed  breathing."  For 
relief  from  these  he  had  recourse  to  the  sedative, 
which  he  had  begun  to  use  so  far  back  as  1796,  and 


128  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

the  habit  became  now  fairly  confirmed.  Leaving  Malta 
in  September,  1805,  he  came  to  Rome,  and  there  spent 
some  time  in  seeing  what  every  traveller  sees,  but 
what  Coleridge  would  see  with  other  eyes  and  keener 
insight  than  most  men.  Full  observations  on  these 
things  he  noted  down  for  after  use.  There,  too,  he 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  German  poet  Tieck,  of 
an  American  painter,  Allston,  and  of  Humboldt,  the 
brother  of  the  great  traveller.  Gilman  informs  us  that 
Coleridge  was  told  by  Humboldt  that  his  name  was  on 
the  list  of  the  proscribed  at  Paris,  owing  to  an  article 
which  he  (Coleridge)  had  written  against  Bonaparte 
in  the  "  Morning  Post ;  "  that  the  arrest  had  already 
been  sent  to  Rome,  but  that  one  morning  Coleridge 
was  waited  on  by  a  noble  Benedictine,  sent  to  him  by 
the  kindness  of  the  Pope,  bearing  a  passport  signed  by 
the  Pope,  and  telling  him  that  a  carriage  was  ready  to 
bear  him  at  once  to  Leghorn.  Coleridge  took  the 
hint ;  at  Leghorn  embarked  on  board  of  an  American 
vessel  sailing  for  England ;  was  chased  by  a  French 
ship ;  and  was,  during  the  chase,  forced  by  the  captain 
to  throw  overboard  all  his  papers,  and  among  them  his 
notes  and  observations  made  in  Rome.  So  writes  Cole- 
ridge's biographer.  Wilson  laughs  at  the  thought  of 
the  Imperial  eagle  stooping  to  pursue  such  small  game 
as  Coleridge.  And  certainly  it  does  seem  hardly  cred- 
ible that  Bonaparte  should  have  so  noted  the  secrets 
of  the  London  newspaper  press,  or  have  made  such 
efforts  to  lay  hands  on  one  stray  member  of  that  corps. 
De  Quincey,  however,  argues  from  Bonaparte's  char- 
acter and  habits  that  the  thing  was  by  no  means  im- 
probable. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  attempt  to  trace  all  the 
changes  of  his  life  for  the  next  ten  years  after  his  re- 
turn from  Malta.  Sometimes  at  Keswick,.  where  his 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  129 

family  still  lived ;  sometimes  with  TVordsworth  at  the 
Town-End  of  Grasmere  ;  sometimes  in  London,  living 
in  the  office  of  the  "  Courier,"  and  writing  for  it ; 
sometimes  lecturing  at  the  Royal  Institution,  often, 
according  to  De  Quincey,  disappointing  his  audience  by 
non-appearance  ;  anon  an  inmate  in  Wordsworth's  new 
home  at  Allan  Bank,  while  "  The  Excursion "  was 
being  composed;  then  taking  final  farewell  of  the 
Lakes  in  1810,  travelling  with  Basil  Montagu  to  Lon- 
don, and  leaving  his  family  at  Keswick,  for  some  years, 
under  care  of  Southey ;  domiciled  now  with  Basil 
Montagu,  now  with  a  Mr.  Morgan  at  Hammersmith,  or 
Calne,  now  with  other  friends  in  or  not  far  from  Lon- 
don ;  so  passed  with  him  those  homeless,  aimless, 
wasted  years  of  middle  manhood.  No  doubt  there 
were  bright  spots  here  and  there,  when  his  marvelous 
powers  found  vent  in  lecturing  on  some  congenial  sub- 
ject, or  flowed  forth  in  that  stream  of  thought  and 
speech  which  was  his  native  element.  During  these 
wanderings  he  met  now  and  then  with  the  wits  of  the 
time,  either  in  rivalry  not  of  his  own  seeking,  or  in 
friendly  intercourse.  Scott  has  recorded  a  rencounter 
he  had  with  Coleridge  at  a  dinner  party,  when  some 
London  litterateurs  sought  to  lower  Scott  by  pitting 
Coleridge  against  him.  Coleridge  had  been  called  on 
to  recite  some  of  his  own  unpublished  poems,  and  had 
done  so.  Scott,  called  on  to  contribute  his  share, 
refused,  on  the  plea  that  he  had  none  to  produce,  but 
offered  to  recite  some  clever  lines  which  he  had  lately 
read  in  a  newspaper.  The  lines  were  the  unfortunate 
"  Fire,  Famine,  and  Slaughter,"  of  which  Coleridge 
was  the  then  unacknowledged  author.  It  is  amusing 
to  see  the  two  sides  of  the  story  ;  the  easy,  off-hand 
humor  with  which  Scott  tells  it  in  a  letter,  or  in  his 
journal ;  and  the  laborious  self-defense  with  which 
9 


130  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

Coleridge  ushers  in  the  lines  in  his  published  poems. 
More  friendly  was  his  intercourse  with  Lord  Byron, 
who,  while  he  was  lessee  of  a  London  theatre,  had 
brought  forward  Coleridge's  "  Remorse,"  and  had  taken 
much  interest  in  its  success.  This  brought  the  two 
poets  frequently  into  company,  and  in  April,  1816, 
Coleridge  thus  speaks  of  Byron's  appearance :  "  If 
you  had  seen  Lord  Byron  you  could  scarcely  disbelieve 
him.  So  beautiful  a  countenance  I  scarcely  ever  saw  ; 
his  teeth  so  many  stationary  smiles ;  his  eyes  the  open 
portals  of  the  sun  —  things  of  light,  and  made  for  light ; 
and  his  forehead,  so  ample,  and  yet  so  flexible,  passing 
from  marble  smoothness  into  a  hundred  wreaths  and 
lines  and  dimples,  correspondent  to  the  feelings  and 
sentiments  he  is  uttering."  But  lecturing,  or  conversa- 
tion, or  intercourse  with  brother  poets,  even  taken  at 
their  best,  are  but  a  poor  account  to  give  of  the  prime 
years  of  such  genius  as  Coleridge  was  intrusted  with. 

The  record  of  his  writings  from  1801  till  1816  con- 
tains only  one  work  of  real  importance.  This  was 
"  The  Friend,"  a  periodical  of  weekly  essays,  intended 
to  help  to  the  formation  of  opinions  on  moral,  political, 
and  artistic  subjects,  grounded  upon  true  and  permanent 
principles.  Undertaken  with  the  countenance  of,  and 
with  some  slight  aid  from,  Wordsworth,  it  began  to  be 
published  in  June,  1809,  and  ceased  in  March,  1810,  be- 
cause it  did  not  pay  the  cost  of  publishing,  which  Cole- 
ridge had  imprudently  taken  on  himself.  The  original 
work  having  been  much  enlarged  and  recast,  was  pub- 
lished again  in  its  present  three-volume  form  in  1818. 
Even  as  it  now  stands,  the  ground-swell  after  the  great 
French  Revolution  tempest  can  be  distinctly  felt.  It 
is  full  of  the  political  problems  cast  up  by  the  troubled 
waters  of  the  then  recent  storm,  and  of  the  attempt  to 
discriminate  between  the  first  truths  of  morality  and 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  131 

maxims  of  political  expediency,  and  to  ground  each  on 
their  own  proper  basis.  No  one  can  read  this  work 
without  feeling  the  force  of  Southey's  remark :  "  The 
vice  of  '  The  Friend '  is  its  round-aboutness."  But 
whoever  will  be  content  to  bear  with  this  and  to  read 
right  on,  will  find  all  through  fruit  which  will  more 
than  repay  the  labor,  with  essays  here  and  there  which 
are  nearly  perfect  both  in  matter  and  in  form.  But 
its  defects,  such  as  they  are,  must  have  told  fatally 
against  its  success  when  it  appeared  as  a  periodical.  It 
was  Coleridge's  misfortune  in  this,  as  in  so  many  of  his 
works,  to  have  to  try  to  combine  two  things,  hard,  if 
not  impossible  to  reconcile, — popularity  that  will  pay, 
and  thought  that  will  elevate.  The  attempt  to  dig 
deep,  and  to  implant  new  truths  which  can  only  be 
taken  in  by  painful  thought,  finds  small  favor  with  most 
readers  of  periodicals.  Few  writers  have  attained  pres- 
ent popularity  and  enduring  power,  and  least  of  all 
could  Coleridge  do  so.  "  The  Friend  "  contains  in  its 
present,  and  probably  it  did  in  its  first  shape,  clear 
indications  of  the  change  that  Coleridge's  mind  had 
gone  through  in  philosophy,  as  well  as  in  his  religious 
belief.  But  of  this  we  shall  have  to  speak  again. 
This  middle  portion  of  Coleridge's  life  may,  perhaps,  be 
not  inaptly  closed  by  the  description  of  his  appearance 
and  manner,  as  these  appeared  to  De  Quincey  when  he 
first  saw  him  in  1807  :  — 

"  I  had  received  directions  for  finding  out  the  house 
where  Coleridge  was  visiting;  and  in  riding  down  a 
main  street  of  Bridgewater,  I  noticed  a  gateway  cor- 
responding to  the  description  given  me.  Under  this 
was  standing  and  gazing  about  him  a  man  whom  I  will 
describe.  In  height  he  might  seem  to  be  about  five 
feet  eight  (he  was  in  reality  about  an  inch  and  a  half 
taller,  but  his  figure  was  of  an  order  which  drowns  the 


132  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

height)  ;  his  person  was  tall  and  full,  and  tended  even 
to  corpulence ;  his  complexion  was  fair,  though  not 
what  painters  technically  style  fair,  because  it  was 
associated  with  black  hair  ;  his  eyes  were  large  and 
soft  in  their  expression ;  and  it  was  from  the  peculiar 
appearance  of  haze  or  dreaminess  which  mixed  with 
their  light  that  I  recognized  my  object.  This  was 
Coleridge.  I  examined  him  steadfastly  for  a  minute 
or  more,  and  it  struck  me  that  he  saw  neither  myself 
nor  any  other  object  in  the  street.  He  was  in  a  deep 
reverie,  for  I  had  dismounted  and  advanced  close  to 
him  before  he  had  apparently  become  conscious  of  my 
presence.  The  sound  of  my  voice,  announcing  my 
name,  first  awoke  him ;  he  started,  and  for  a  moment 
seemed  at  a  loss  to  understand  my  purpose  or  his  own 
situation.  There  was  no  mauvaise  honte  in  his  manner, 
but  simple  perplexity,  and  an  apparent  difficulty  in 
recovering  his  position  amongst  daylight  realities.  This 
little  scene  over,  he  received  me  with  a  kindness  of 
manner  so  marked  that  it  might  be  called  gracious. 
The  hospitable  family  with  whom  he  was  domesticated 
all  testified  for  Coleridge  deep  affection  and  esteem ; 
sentiments  in  which  the  whole  town  of  Bridgewater 

seemed  to  share 

"  Coleridge  led  me  to  the  drawing-room,  rang  the 
bell  for  refreshments,  and  omitted  no  point  of  a  court- 
eous reception That  point  being  settled,  Cole- 
ridge, like  some  great  Orellana,  or  the  St.  Lawrence, 
that,  having  been  checked  and  fretted  by  rocks  or 
thwarting  islands,  suddenly  recovers  its  volume  of 
waters,  and  its  mighty  music,  swept  at  once,  as  if  re- 
turning to  his  natural  business,  into  a  continuous  strain 
of  eloquent  dissertation,  certainly  the  most  novel,  the 
most  finely  illuminated,  and  traversing  the  most  spa- 
cious fields  of  thought,  by  transitions  the  most  just 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  133 

and  logical  that  it  was  possible  to  conceive To 

many  people,  and  often  I  have  heard  the  complaint, 
he  seemed  to  wander ;  and  he  seemed  then  to  wander 
the  most  when  in  fact  his  resistance  to  the  wandering 
instinct  was  greatest,  namely,  when  the  compass  and 
huge  circuit  by  which  his  illustrations  moved,  trav- 
elled furthest  into  remote  regions,  before  they  began 
to  revolve.  Long  before  this  coming  round  com- 
menced, most  people  had  lost  him,  and  naturally  enough 
supposed  that  he  had  lost  himself.  They  continued  to 
admire  the  separate  beauty  of  the  thoughts,  but  did 
not  see  their  relations  to  the  dominant  theme.  How- 
ever, I  can  assert,  upon  my  long  and  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  Coleridge's  mind,  that  logic  the  most  severe 
was  as  inalienable  from  his  modes  of  thinking  as  gram- 
mar from  his  language." 

Admirable  as  in  the  main  the  essay  is  from  which 
this  sketch  is  taken,  it  contains  some  things  which  one 
could  wish  unwritten.  De  Quiucey  dwells  on  some 
alleged  faults  of  Coleridge  with  a  loving  minuteness 
which  the  pure  love  of  truth  can  hardly  account  for  ; 
and  with  regard  to  the  great  and  all-absorbing  fault, 
the  habit  of  opium-taking,  his  statements  are  directly 
opposed  to  those  made  by  Coleridge  himself,  and  by 
his  friends  who  had  the  best  means  of  knowing  the 
truth.  He  says  that  Coleridge  first  took  to  opium, 
"  not  as  a  relief  from  bodily  pains  or  nervous  irrita- 
tions, for  his  constitution  was  naturally  strong  and 
excellent,  but  as  a  source  of  luxurious  sensations." 
Here  De  Quincey  falls  into  two  errors.  First,  Cole- 
ridge's constitution  was  not  really  strong.  Though 
full  of  life  and  energy,  his  body  was  also  full  of  dis- 
ease, which  gradually  poisoned  the  springs  of  life.  His 
letters  bear  witness  to  this,  by  the  many  complaints 
of  ill  health  which  they  contain,  before  he  ever  touched 


134  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERID&E. 

opium.  Again,  as  we  have  already  seen,  what  he 
sought  in  opium  was  not  pleasurable  sensations,  but 
freedom  from  pain,  —  an  antidote  to  the  nervous  agi- 
tations under  which  he  suffered.  But  whatever  may 
have  been  the  beginning  of  the  habit,  the  result  of 
continued  indulgence  in  it  was  equally  disastrous.  We 
have  already  seen  the  letter  which  notes  his  first  re- 
course to  the  fatal  drug  in  1796.  As  his  ailments 
increased,  so  did  his  use  of  it.  At  Malta,  opium-taking 
became  a  confirmed  habit,  and  from  that  time  for  ten 
years  it  quite  overmastered  him.  In  1807,  the  year 
when  De  Quincey  first  met  him,  he  writes  of  himself 
as  "  rolling  rudderless,"  with  an  increasing  and  over- 
whelming sense  of  wretchedness.  The  craving  went 
on  growing,  and  his  consumption  of  the  drug  had,  by 
1814,  reached  a  quite  appalling  height.  Cottle,  then, 
on  meeting  Coleridge,  saw  what  a  wreck  he  had  be- 
come, discovered  the  fatal  cause,  and  took  courage  to 
remonstrate  by  letter.  Coleridge  makes  no  conceal- 
ment, pleads  guilty  to  the  evil  habit,  and  confesses 
that  he  is  utterly  miserable.  Sadder  letters  were  per- 
haps never  written  than  those  cries  out  of  the  depths 
of  his  agony.  He  tells  Cottle  that  he  had  learned 
what  "  sin  is  against  an  imperishable  being,  such  as  is 
the  soul  of  man  ;  that  he  had  had  more  than  one 
glimpse  of  the  outer  darkness  and  the  worm  that  dieth 
not;  that  if  annihilation  and  the  possibility  of  heaven 
were  at  that  moment  offered  to  his  choice,  he  would 
prefer  the  former."  More  pitiful  still  is  that  letter  to 
his  friend  Wade :  "  In  the  one  crime  of  opium,  what 
crime  have  I  not  made  myself  guilty  of?  Ingratitude 
to  my  Maker ;  and  to  my  benefactors  injustice ;  and 

unnatural  cruelty  to    my  poor    children After 

my  death,  I  earnestly  entreat  that  a  full  and  unquali- 
fied narrative  of  my  wretchedness,  and  of  its  guilty 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  135 

cause,  may  be  made  public,  that  at  least  some  little 
good  may  be  effected  by  the  direful  example."  It  is 
painful  to  dwell  on  these  things,  nor  should  they  have 
been  reproduced  here,  had  it  been  possible  to  have 
given  a  true  picture  of  the  man,  without  touching  on 
this,  the  dark  side  of  his  character. 

Strange  and  sad  as  it  is  to  think  that  one  so  gifted 
should  have  fallen  so  low,  it  is  hardly  less  strange 
that  from  that  degradation  he  should  ever  have  been 
enabled  to  rise.  The  crisis  seems  to  have  come  about 
the  time  when  those  letters  passed  between  Cottle  and 
him  in  1814.  For  some  time  there  followed  a  struggle 
against  the  tyrant  vice,  by  various  means,  but  all  seem- 
ingly ineffectual.  At  last  he  voluntarily  arranged  to 
board  himself  with  the  family  of  Mr.  Gilman,  a  physi- 
cian, who  lived  at  Highgate,  in  a  retired  house,  in  an 
airy  situation  surrounded  by  a  large  garden.  It  was  in 
April,  1816,  that  he  first  entered  this  house  at  High- 
gate,  which  continued  to  be  his  home  for  eighteen 
years  till  his  death.  The  letter  in  which  he  opens  his 
grief  to  Mr.  Gilman,  and  commends  himself  to  his  care, 
is  very  striking,  showing  at  once  his  strong  desire  to 
overcome  the  inveterate  habit,  and  his  feeling  of  in- 
ability to  do  so,  unless  he  were  placed  under  a  watchful 
eye  and  external  restraint.  In  this  home  he  learned 
to  abandon  opium,  and  here,  though  weighed  down  by 
ever  increasing  bodily  infirmity,  and  often  by  great 
mental  depression,  he  found  on  the  whole  — 

"  The  best  quiet  to  his  course  allowed." 

That  the  vice  was  overcome  might  be  inferred  from 
the  very  fact  that  his  life  was  prolonged.  And  though 
statements  to  the  contrary  have  been  made  from  quar- 
ters whence  they  might  least  have  been  expected,  there 
is,  as  I  have  learned  from  the  most  trustworthy  author- 


136  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

ities  still  living,  no  ground  for  these  statements.  The 
friends  of  Coleridge,  who  have  had  best  access  to  the 
truth,  believe  that  at  Highgate  he  obtained  that  self- 
mastery  which  he  sought.  No  doubt,  the  habit  left  a 
bane  behind  it,  a  body  shattered,  a  mind  shorn  of  much 
of  its  strength  for  continuous  effort,  ever-recurring 
seasons  of  despondency  and  visitings  of  self-reproach 
for  so  much  life  wasted,  so  great  powers  given,  so  little 
achieved.  No  man  ever  felt  more  painfully  than  he 
the  contrast  between  — 

"  The  petty  Done,  the  Undone  vast." 

But  still,  under  all  these  drawbacks,  he  labored  ear- 
nestly to  redeem  what  of  life  remained ;  and  most  of 
what  is  satisfactory  to  remember  of  his  life  belongs  to 
those  last  eighteen  years.  It  was  a  time  of  gathering 
up  of  the  fragments  that  remained  —  of  saving  splinters 
washed  ashore  from  the  mighty  wreck.  To  this  time, 
such  as  it  is,  we  owe  most  of  that  by  which  Coleridge 
is  now  known  to  men,  and  by  which,  if  at  all,  he  has 
benefited  his  kind. 

During  those  years  the  great  religious  change  that 
had  been  long  going  on  was  completed  and  confirmed. 
As  far  back  as  1800  his  adherence  to  the  Hartleian 
philosophy  and  his  belief  in  Unitarian  theology  had 
been  shaken.  By  1805  he  was  in  some  sense  a  be- 
liever in  the  Trinity,  and  had  entered  on  a  closer 
study  of  Scripture,  especially  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John. 
There  were  in  him,  as  De  Quincey  observed,  the 
capacity  of  love  and  faith,  of  self-distrust,  humility,  and 
child-like  docility,  waiting  but  for  time  and  sorrow  to 
mature  them.  Such  a  discipline  the  long  ineffectual 
struggle  with  his  infirmity  supplied.  The  sense  of 
moral  weakness,  and  of  sin,  working  inward  contrition, 
made  him  seek  for  a  more  practical,  supporting  faith 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  137 

than  he  had  known  in  his  early  years.  And  so  he 
learned  that,  while  the  consistency  of  Christianity  with 
right  reason  and  the  historic  evidence  of  miracles  are 
the  outworks,  yet  the  vital  centre  of  faith  lies  in  the 
believer's  feeling  of  his  great  need,  and  the  experience 
that  the  redemption  which  is  in  Christ  meets  that 
need ;  that  it  is  the  "  sorrow  rising  from  beneath  and 
the  consolation  meeting  it  from  above,"  the  actual 
trial  of  the  faith  in  Christ,  which  is  its  ultimate  and 
most  satisfying  evidence.  With  him,  too,  as  with  so 
many  before,  it  was  credidi,  ideoque  intellexi.  The 
Highgate  time  was  also  the  period  of  his  most  pro- 
longed and  undisturbed  study.  Among  much  other 
reading,  the  Old  English  divines  were  diligently  pe- 
rused and  commented  on  ;  and  his  criticisms  and  reflec- 
tions on  them  fill  nearly  the  whole  of  the  third  and 
fourth  volumes  of  his  "  Literary  Remains."  A  dis- 
criminating, often  a  severe  critic  of  these  writers,  he 
was  still  a  warm  admirer,  in  this  a  striking  contrast  to 
Arnold,  who  certainly  unduly  depreciated  them. 

Almost  the  whole  of  his  prose  works  were  the 
product  of  this  time.  First  the  "Two  Lay  Sermons," 
published  in  1816  and  1827.  Then  the  "  Biographia 
Literaria,"  published  in  1817,  though  in  part  composed 
some  years  before.  In  1818  followed  the  recast  and 
greatly  enlarged  edition  of  "  The  Friend  ; "  and  in 
1825  he  gave  to  the  world  the  most  mature  of  all  his 
works,  the  "  Aids  to  Reflection."  Incorporated  es- 
pecially with  the  earlier  part  of  this  work,  are  selec- 
tions from  the  writings  of  Archbishop  Leighton,  of 
which  he  has  said  that  to  him  they  seemed  "  next  to 
the  inspired  Scriptures,  yea,  as  the  vibration  of  that 
ance-struck  hour  remaining  on  the  air."  The  mam 
substance  of  the  work,  however,  contains  his  own 
thoughts  on  the  grounds  of  morality  and  religion,  and 


138  SAMUEL   TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

of  the  relation  of  these  to  each  other,  along  with  his 
views  on  some  of  the  main  doctrines  of  the  faith.  The 
last  work  that  appeared  during  his  lifetime  was  that  on 
"Church  and  State,"  published  in  1830.  After  his 
death  appeared  his  posthumous  works,  namely,  the 
four  volumes  of  "  Literary  Remains,"  and  the  small 
volume  on  the  inspiration  of  Scripture,  entitled  "  Con- 
fessions of  an  Inquiring  Spirit." 

It  is  by  these  works  alone,  incomplete  as  many  of 
them  are,  that  posterity  can  judge  of  him.  But  the 
impression  of  overflowing  genius  which  he  left  on  his 
contemporaries  was  due  not  so  much  to  his  writings  as 
to  his  marvelous  talk.  Printed  books  have  made  us 
undervalue  this  gift,  or  at  best  regard  it  more  as  a 
thing  of  display  than  as  a  genuine  thought-communi- 
cating power.  But  as  an  organ  of  teaching  truth, 
speech  is  older  than  books,  and  for  this  end  Plato, 
among  others,  preferred  the  living  voice  to  dead  letters. 
Measured  by  this  standard,  Coleridge  had  no  equal  in 
his  own,  and  few  in  any  age.  How  his  gift  of  dis- 
course in  his  younger  days  arrested  Hazlitt  and  De 
Quincey,  has  been  already  seen  ;  and  in  his  declining 
years  at  Highgate,  when  bodily  ailments  allowed,  dur- 
ing the  pauses  of  study  and  writing,  fuller  and  more 
continuous  than  ever  the  mighty  monologue  streamed 
on.  Some  faint  echoes  of  what  then  fell  from  him 
have  been  caught  up  and  preserved  in  the  well-known 
"  Table-Talk,"  by  his  nephew  and  son-in-law,  Henry 
Nelson  Coleridge,  who  in  his  preface  has  finely  de- 
scribed the  impression  produced  by  his  uncle's  conversa- 
tion on  congenial  listeners.  To  that  retirement  at 
Highgate  flocked  as  on  a  pilgrimage  most  of  what  was 
brilliant  in  intellect  or  ardent  in  youthful  genius  at 
that  day.  Edward  Irving,  Julius  Hare,  Sterling,  and 
many  more  who  might  be  named,  were  among  his 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  139 

frequent  and  most  devoted  listeners.  Most  came  to 
listen,  wonder,  and  learn.  But  some  came  and  went 
to  shrug  their  shoulders,  and  pronounce  it  unintelligible, 
as  Chalmers  ;  or  in  after  years  to  scoff,  as  Mr.  Carlyle. 
Likely  enough  this  latter  came  craving  a  solution  of 
some  pressing  doubt  or  bewildering  enigma ;  and  to 
receive  instead  a  prolonged  and  circuitous  disquisition 
must  to  his  then  mood  of  mind  have  been  tantalizing 
enough.  But  was  it  well  done,  0  great  Thomas !  for 
this,  years  afterwards,  to  jeer  at  the  old  man's  en- 
feebled gait,  and  caricature  the  tones  of  his  voice  ? 

In  the  summer  of  1833  Coleridge  was  seen  for  the 
last  time  in  public,  at  the  meeting  of  the  British  Asso- 
ciation at  Cambridge.  Next  year,  on  the  25th  of  July, 
he  died  in  Mr.  Gilman's  house  in  The  Grove,  High- 
gate,  which  had  been  so  long  his  home,  and  was  laid 
hard  by  in  his  last  resting-place  within  the  old  church- 
yard by  the  roadside. 

Twelve  days  before  his  death,  not  knowing  it  to  be 
so  near,  he  wrote  to  his  godchild  this  remarkable  let- 
ter,1 which,  gathering  up  the  sum  of  his  whole  life's 
experience,  reads  like  his  unconscious  epitaph  on  him- 
self:— 

"  MY  DEAR  GODCHILD,  —  ....  Years  must  pass 
before  you  will  be  able  to  read  with  an  understanding 
heart  what  I  now  write  ;  but  I  trust  that  the  all-gra- 
cious God,  the  Father  of  .our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Father  of  mercies,  who  by  his  only  begotten  Son  (all 
mercies  in  one  sovereign  mercy)  has  redeemed  you 
from  the  evil  ground,  and  willed  you  to  be  born  out  of 
darkness,  but  into  light ;  out  of  death,  but  into  life  ;  out 
of  sin,  but  into  righteousness,  even  into  the  Lord  our 

i  This  letter  was  written  on  the  13th,  and  he  died  on  the  25th  day  of 
Tuly. 


140  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

Righteousness,  —  I  trust  that  He  will  graciously  hear 
the  prayers  of  your  dear  parents,  and  be  with  you  as 
the  spirit  of  health  and  growth  in  body  and  mind. 

"  ....  I,  too,  your  godfather,  have  known  what 
the  enjoyments  and  advantages  of  this  life  are,  and 
what  the  more  refined  pleasures  which  learning  and 
intellectual  power  can  bestow ;  and  with  the  ex- 
perience which  more  than  threescore  years  can  give, 
I  now,  on  the  eve  of  my  departure,  declare  to  you 
(and  earnestly  pray  that  you  may  hereafter  live  and 
act  on  the  conviction)  that  health  is  a  great  blessing, 
competence  obtained  by  honorable  industry  a  great 
blessing,  and  a  great  blessing  it  is  to  have  kind,  faith- 
ful, and  loving  friends  and  relatives ;  but  that  the 
greatest  of  all  blessings,  as  it  is  the  most  ennobling  of 
all  privileges,  is  to  be  indeed  a  Christian.  But  I  have 
been  likewise,  through  a  large  portion  of  my  later  life, 
a  sufferer,  sorely  afflicted  with  bodily  pains,  languors, 
and  infirmities;  and  for  the  last  three  or  four  years 
have,  with  a  few  and  brief  intervals,  been  confined  to  a 
sick-room,  and  at  this  moment,  in  great  weakness 
and  heaviness,  write  from  a  sick-bed,  hopeless  of  a 
recovery,  yet  without  prospect  of  a  speedy  removal ; 
and  I,  thus  on  the  very  brink  of  the  grave,  solemnly 
bear  witness  to  you,  that  the  Almighty  Redeemer, 
most  gracious  in  his  promises  to  them  that  truly  seek 
Him,  is  faithful  to  perform  what  He  hath  promised,  and 
has  preserved,  under  all  my  pains  and  infirmities,  the 
inward  peace  that  passeth  all  understanding,  with  the 
supporting  assurance  of  a  reconciled  God,  who  will  not 
withdraw  his  Spirit  from  me  in  the  conflict,  and  in 
his  own  time  will  deliver  me  from  the  Evil  One. 

"  O,  my  dear  godchild  !  eminently  blessed  are  those 
who  begin  early  to  seek,  fear,  and  love  their  God,  trust- 
ing wholly  in  the  righteousness  and  mediation  of  their 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  141 

Lord,  Redeemer,  Saviour,  and  everlasting  High  Priest, 
Jesus  Christ. 

"  O,  preserve  this  as  a  legacy  and  bequest  from  your 
unseen  godfather  and  friend,  S.  T.  COLERIDGE." 

And  now,  perhaps,  this  sketch  cannot  close  more 
fitly  than  in  the  affectionate  words  -of  his  nephew,  the 
faithful  defender  of  the  memory  of  his  great  uncle  :  — 

"  Coleridge  !  blessings  on  his  gentle  memory  !  Cole- 
ridge was  a  frail  mortal.  He  had  indeed  his  peculiar 
weaknesses  as  well  as  his  unique  powers ;  sensibilities 
that  an  averted  look  would  rack,  a  heart  which  would 
beat  calmly  in  the  tremblings  of  an  earthquake.  He 
shrank  from  mere  uneasiness  like  a  child,  and  bore  the 
preparatory  agonies  of  his  death-attack  like  a  martyr. 
He  suffered  an  almost  life-long  punishment  for  his 
errors,  whilst  the  world  at  large  has  the  unwithering 
fruits  of  his  labors,  and  his  genius,  and  his  sufferings." 

If  I  have  traced  in  any  measure  aright  the  course  of 
Coleridge's  life,  no  more  is  needed  to  show  what  these 
failings  and  errors  were.  It  more  concerns  us  to  ask 
what  permanent  fruit  of  all  that  he  thought,  and  did, 
and  suffered  under  the  sun,  there  still  remains,  now 
that  he  has  lain  more  than  thirty  years  in  his  grave 
To  answer  this  fully  is  impossible  in  the  case  of  any 
man,  much  more  in  the  case  of  one  who  has  been  a 
great  thinker  rather  than  a  great  doer  ;  for  many  of 
his  best  ideas  have  so  melted  into  the  general  atmos- 
phere of  thought,  that  it  is  hard  to  separate  them  from 
the  complex  whole,  and  trace  them  back  to  their  origi- 
nal source.  But  the  abler  men  of  his  own  generation 
were  not  slow  to  confess  how  much  they  owed  to  him. 
In  poetry,  Sir  Walter  Scott  acknowledged  himself  as 
indebted  to  him  for  the  opening  key-note  of  "  The  Lay 


142  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

of  the  Last  Minstrel."  In  the  metre,  sentiment,  and 
drapery  of  that  first  canto,  it  is  not  difficult  to  trace  the 
influence  of  "  Christabel,"  then  unpublished,  but  well 
known.  Wordsworth,  aloof  from  his  contemporaries, 
and  self-sufficing  as  he  was,  felt  Coleridge  to  be  his 
equal  —  "  the  only  wonderful  man  I  have  ever  known." 
Arnold,  at  a  later  day,  called  him  the  greatest  intellect 
that  England  had  produced  within  his  memory,  and 
shared  with,  perhaps  learned  from  him,  some  of  his 
leading  thoughts,  as  that  the  identification  of  the  church 
with  the  clergy  was  "  the  first  and  fundamental  apos- 
tasy." Dr.  Newman  pointed  to  Coleridge's  works  long 
since  as  a  proof  that  the  minds  of  men  in  England  were 
then  yearning  for  something  higher  and  deeper  than 
what  had  satisfied  the  last  age.  Julius  Hare  speaks  of 
him  as  "  the  great  religious  philosopher,  to  whom  the 
mind  of  our  generation  in  England  owes  more  than  to 
any  other  man."  Mr.  Maurice  has  everywhere  spoken 
with  deeper  reverence  of  him  than  of  any  other  teacher 
of  these  latter  times.  Even  Mr.  Mill  has  said  _that  "  no 
one  has  contributed  more  to  shape  the  opinions  among 
younger  men,  who  can  be  said  to  have  any  opinions  at 
all." 

But  what  need  to  note  the  impression  he  made  here 
and  there  on  single  men,  however  eminent?  He  was 
the  spirit-quickener  not  only  of  this  man  or  that,  but 
of  his  whole  age.  The  greatest  men  of  his  time  were 
the  most  susceptible  of  his  influence,  and  the  first  to 
feel  it  —  Wordsworth,  Scott,  Byron,  Irving,  Wilson, 
Hazlitt,  even  Carlyle  —  on  these,  as  has  been  lately 
said,  he  laid  his  spell,  and  "  spoke  through  them." 
And  partly  through  them,  partly  by  his  own  immediate 
agency,  he  has  since  entered  into  the  inner  thought  of 
every  reflective  man.  For  his  was  the  most  germina- 
tive  mind  England  has  this  century  given  birth  to. 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  143 

Like  a  vast  seed-field  it  lay,  till  the  winds  of  inspiration 
wafted  over  it,  blowing  the  seeds  of  his  new  thought 
over  all  the  land.  Incommensurable  as  Scott  and 
Coleridge  in  all  other  respects  are,  lying  as  they  do  at 
the  very  opposite  poles  of  thought,  in  one  thing  they 
are  alike  —  the  width  of  their  operation.  If  the  one 
by  the  vastness  of  his  objective  work  changed  the  whole 
surface  of  society,  not  less  widely  or  powerfully  did  the 
other  by  his  penetrating  subjectivity  leaven  it  in  its 
inmost  depths.  No  really  great  man  can  be  fully 
represented  by  his  books,  but  few  great  men  have  left 
in  their  books  so  inadequate  expressions  of  themselves 
as  Coleridge  has  done.  The  living  presence  with  the 
winged  words,  vivifying  the  minds  of  all  hearers,  has 
long  been  gone,  and  of  all  that  matchless  discourse,  no 
trace  remains  but  the  few  faint  notices  of  those  who 
heard  it.  Therefore,  from  the  living  eloquence  to  the 
silent  books,  we  are  forced  reluctantly  to  turn,  since 
these,  though  but  a  moiety  of  what  he  was,  are  all  the 
permanent  record  of  him  that  remains. 

These  works  are  but  fragments  of  his  speculation, 
and  this  forms  one  difficulty  in  rightly  estimating  them. 
Another,  and  perhaps  greater,  lies  in  the  width  over 
which  they  range.  Most  original  thinkers  have  devoted 
themselves  to  but  a  few  lines  of  inquiry.  Coleridge's 
thought  may  be  almost  said  to  have  been  as  wide  as 
life.  To  apply  to  himself  the  word  which  he  first 
coined,  or  rather  translated  from  some  obscure  Byzan- 
tian,  to  express  Shakespeare's  quality,  he  was  a  "  myr- 
iad-minded man."  He  touched  being  at  almost  every 
point,  and  wherever  he  touched  it,  he  opened  up  some 
new  shaft  of  truth,  and  his  books  contain  some  frag- 
ment of  what  he  saw.  He  who  would  fully  estimate 
Coleridge's  contributions  to  thought  would  have  to  con- 
sider him  at  least  in  these  several  aspects,  as  a  poet,  as 


144  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

a  critic,  as  a  political  philosopher,  as  a  moralist,  and  as 
a  theologian.  But  without  hazarding  anything  like  so 
large  an  attempt,  a  few  brief  remarks  may  be  offered 
on  what  he  has  done  in  some  of  these  so  widely  differ- 
ent fields. 

It  was  as  a  poet  that  Coleridge  was  first  known,  and 
the  wish  has  many  times  been  expressed  that  he  had 
stuck  to  poetry,  and  never  tried  philosophy.  No  doubt 
he  had  imagination  enough,  as  some  one  has  said,  to 
have  furnished  forth  a  thousand  poets,  and  "  Christabel " 
will  probably  be  read  longer  than  any  prose  work  he 
has  written.  This,  however,  belongs  both  to  the  sub- 
stance and  the  form  of  all  poetry  that  is  perfect  after  its 
kind.  But  vast  and  vivid  as  Coleridge's  imagination 
was,  may  not  this  power  be  as  legitimately  employed  in 
interpenetrating  and  quickening  the  reason,  and  revivify- 
ing domains  of  philosophy,  which  are  apt  to  grow  narrow 
or  dead  through  prosaic  formalism,  as  in  purely  poetic 
creation  ?  Moreover,  there  were  perhaps  in  Coleridge 
some  special  powers  of  fine  analysis  and  introvertive 
speculation,  which  seem  to  have  predestined  him  for 
other  work  than  poetry ;  just  as  there  were  some  spe- 
cial wants,  arising  either  from  natural  temperament  or 
early  education,  which  marred  his  poetic  completeness. 
He  had  never  lived  much  in  the  open  air  ;  he  had  no 
large  storehouse  of  facts  or  images,  either  drawn  from 
observation  of  outward  nature,  or  from  more  than 
common  acquaintance  with  any  modes  of  life  or  sides 
of  human  character,  such  as  Wordsworth  and  Scott  in 
different  ways  had.  It  was  not  the  nature  of  his  mind 
to  dwell  lovingly  on  concrete  things,  but  rather,  from  its 
strong  generalizing  bias,  to  be  borne  off  continually  into 
the  abstract.  Therefore  I  cannot  think  that  Coleridge, 
though  he  might  have  more  delighted,  would  have  done 
better  service  to  mankind,  if  he  had  stuck  wholly  to 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  145 

poetry,  or  that  he  did  otherwise  than  fulfill  his  destiny 
by  giving  way  to  the  philosophic  impulse. 

His  daughter  has  said  that  he  had  four  poetic  epochs, 
representing,  more  or  less,  boyhood,  early  manhood, 
middle,  and  declining  life.  To  trace  these  carefully  is 
not  for  this  place.  The  juvenile  poems,  those  of  the 
first  epoch,  though  showing  here  and  there  hints  of  the 
coming  power,  contain,  as  a  whole,  nothing  which  would 
make  them  live,  were  it  not  for  what  came  afterwards, 
He  himself  has  said  that  these  poems  are  disfigured  by 
too  great  exuberance  of  double  epithets,  and  by  gen- 
eral turgidity.  These  mark,  perhaps,  the  tumult  of  his 
thick-thronging  thoughts,  struggling  to  utter  themselves 
with  force  and  freshness,  yet  not  quite  disengaged  from 
the  old  commonplaces  of  poetic  diction,  "  eve's  dusky 
car,"  and  such-like,  and  from  those  frigid  personifica- 
tions of  abstract  qualities  in  which  the  former  age  de- 
lighted. Of  these  early  poems,  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting is  that  on  the  death  of  Chatterton,  in  which, 
though  the  form  somewhat  recalls  the  odes  of  Collins 
and  Gray,  his  native  self  here  and  there  breaks  through. 
Some  of  them  are  pensive  with  his  early  sorrow,  others 
fierce  and  turbid  with  his  revolutionary  fervor.  The 
longest  and  most  important,  styled  "  Religious  Mus- 
ings," though  Bowles  ranked  it  high,  might  easily,  not- 
withstanding some  fine  thoughts,  suggest  one  of  his 
rhapsodies  in  a  Unitarian  chapel  cut  into  blank  verse. 
The  religious  sentiments  it  contains  are  frigid  and  bom- 
bastic ;  the  politics  denunciatory  of  existing  things,  of — 

"  Warriors,  lords,  and  priests,  all  the  sore  ills 
That  vex  and  desolate  our  mortal  life." 

They  contain,  however,  some  true  thoughts,  well  put, 
though  tinged  with  his  Revolution  dreams,  on  the  good 
and   evil   that  have  sprung  out  of  the  institution  of 
10 


146  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

property,  and  a  fine  apostrophe  to  all  the  sin-defiled 
and  sorrow-laden  ones,  whose  day  of  deliverance  yet 
waits. 

It  had  been  well  if  the  poems  of  the  second  period, 
which  were  mostly  written  during  the  Bristol  and 
Nether  Stowey  periods,  and  now  make  up  the  chief 
part  of  the  "  Sibylline  Leaves,"  had  been  arranged  in 
the  order  in  which  they  were  composed.  This  would 
have  thrown  much  light  on  them,  arising  as  they  do 
either  out  of  the  events  of  the  time  or  of  Coleridge's 
personal  circumstances.  Compared  with  those  of  the 
former  period,  the  stream  flows  more  even  and  un- 
broken. The  crude  philosophy  has  all  but  disappeared, 
the  blank  verse  is  now  more  fused  and  melodious,  the 
rhythm  of  thought  more  mellow,  the  religious  senti- 
ment, where  it  does  appear,  no  longer  reasoning,  but 
meditative,  is  more  chastened  and  deep.  These  poems 
it  must  have  been,  which  were  to  De  Quincey  "  the 
ray  of  a  new  morning,  a  revealing  of  untrodden  worlds, 
till  then  unsuspected  amongst  men."  Such  Wilson 
found  them,  and  so  in  a  measure  they  have  been  to 
many  since.  In  re-reading  them,  after  an  interval  of 
years,  this  is  perhaps  felt  less  vividly.  Is  it  that  time 
has  diminished  the  keen  sense  of  their  originality ; 
that  the  new  fragrance  they  once  gave  forth  has  so 
filled  the  poetic  atmosphere  that  it  makes  itself  now 
less  distinctly  felt  ?  However  this  may  be,  such  acci- 
dents of  personal  feeling  do  not  affect  their  real  worth. 
Of  two  fine  poems  written  at  Clevedon,  the  one  on  the 
"  JEolian  Harp  "  contains  a  passage  that  may  be  com- 
pared with  the  well-known  so-called  Pantheistic  pas- 
sage in  Wordsworth's  "  Tin  tern  Abbey."  The  other, 
"  Reflections  on  leaving  a  place  of  Retirement,"  breathes 
a  beautiful  though  too  brief  spirit  of  happiness  and 
content  In  the  same  gentle  vein  are  the  "  Lines  to 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  147 

his  Brother  George,"  and  "Frost  at  Midnight,"  in 
finely  balanced  and  beautifully  modulated  blank  verse. 
But  higher  and  of  wider  compass  are  the  three  polit- 
ical poems,  the  ode  on  "  The  Departing  Year,"  written 
at  the  close  of  1796,  "  France,"  an  ode,  written  hi 
February,  1797,  and  "Tears  in  Solitude,"  in  1798. 
The  last  of  these  opens  and  closes  with  some  of  his 
best  blank  verses,  full  of  lambent  light  and  his  own 
exquisite  music,  though  the  middle  is  troubled  with 
somewhat  intemperate  politics,  pamphleteeringly  ex- 
pressed. The  ode  on  "  France,"  when  his  fond  hopes 
of  the  Revolution  had  ended  in  disappointment,  is  a 
strain  of  noblest  poetry.  It  opens  with  a  call  on  the 
clouds,  the  waves,  the  sun,  the  sky,  all  hi  nature  that 
is  most  free,  to  bear  witness  — 

"  With  what  deep  worship  I  have  still  adored 
The  spirit  of  divinest  Liberty." 

And  closes  with  these  grand  lines  :  — 

"  0  Liberty !  with  profitless  endeavor 
Have  I  pursued  thee  many  a  weary  hour; 
But  thou  nor  swell' st  the  victor's  strain,  nor  ever 
Didst  breathe  thy  soul  in  forms  of  human  power; 
Alike  from  all,  howe'er  they  praise  thee 
(Nor  prayer  nor  boastful  name  delays  thee), 
Alike  from  Priestcraft's  harpy  minions, 
And  factious  Blasphemy's  obscener  slaves, 
Thou  speedest  on  thy  subtle  pinions, 
The  guide  of  homeless  winds,  the  playmate  of  the  waves ! 
And  there,  I  felt  thee !  on  that  sea-cliffs  verge, 
Whose  pines,  scarce  travelled  by  the  breeze  above, 
Had  made  one  murmur  with  the  distant  surge ! 
Yes !  while  I  stood  and  gazed,  my  temples  bare, 
And  shot  my  being  through  earth,  sea,  and  air, 
Possessing  all  things  with  intensest  love, 
O  Liberty,  my  spirit  felt  thee  there !  " 

Equal,  perhaps,  to  any  of  the  above,  are  the  lines 
he  addressed  to  Wordsworth,  after  hearing  that  poet 
read  aloud  the  first  draft  of  "  The  Prelude  : "  — 


148  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

"  An  Orphic  song  indeed, 
A  song  divine,  of  high  and  passionate  thoughts, 
To  their  own  music  chanted !  .  .  .  . 
And  when,  0  friend !  my  comforter  and  guide ! 
Strong  in  thyself,  and  powerful  to  give  strength, 
Thy  long-sustained  song  finally  closed, 
And  thy  deep  voice  had  ceased  —  yet  thou  thyself 
"VVert  still  before  my  eyes,  and  round  us  both 
That  happy  vision  of  beloved  faces  — 
Scarce  conscious,  and  yet  conscious  of  its  close, 
I  sat,  my  being  blended  in  one  thought 
(Thought  was  it?  or  aspiration?  or  resolve?) 
Absorbed,  yet  hanging  still  upon  the  sound  — 
And  when  I  rose,  I  found  myself  in  prayer." 

Of  the  "  Ancient  Mariner "  and  "  Christabel,"  the 
two  prime  creations  of  the  Nether  Stowey  period, 
nothing  need  be  said.  Time  has  now  stamped  these 
with  the  signet  of  immortality.  The  view  with  which 
these  two  masterpieces  were  begun,  as  the  brother 
poets  walked  on  the  green  heights  of  Quantock,  has 
been  detailed  elsewhere.  Coleridge  was  to  choose 
supernatural  or  romantic  characters,  and  clothe  them 
from  his  own  imagination  with  a  human  interest  and 
a  semblance  of  truth.  It  would  be  hard  to  analyze  the 
strange  witchery  that  is  in  both,  especially  in  "  Chris- 
tabel ; "  the  language  so  simple  and  natural,  yet  so 
aerially  musical,  the  rhythm  so  original,  yet  so  fitted 
to  the  story,  and  the  glamour  over  all,  a  glamour  so 
peculiar  to  this  one  poem.  The  first  part  belongs  to 
Quantock,  the  second  was  composed  several  years  later 
at  the  Lakes,  yet  still  the  tale  is  but  half  told.  Would 
it  have  gained  or  lost  in  power  had  it  been  completed  ? 

It  has  been  asked  whether  there  is  in  Coleridge's 
poetry  any  trace  of  the  peculiar  vein  of  thought  which 
afterwards  appeared  in  him  as  philosophy.  There  is 
first  a  delicacy  and  subtlety  of  thought  and  imagery 
strange  to  English  poets  for  at  least  two  centuries.  It 
is  in  him  we  find  — 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR    COLERIDGE.  149 

"  The  stilly  murmur  of  the  distant  sea 
Tells  us  of  silence." 

His,  too,  is  — 

"  A  dream  remembered  in  a  dream," 

and  his  — 

"  Her  voice  that  even  in  its  mirthful  mood 
Hath  made  me  wish  to  steal  away  and  weep." 

In  him  too  it  is  that  the  vision  of  Mont  Blanc  awakens 
that  idealism  — 

"  Most  dread  and  silent  mount  !     I  gazed  upon  thee 
Till  thou,  still  present  to  my  bodily  sense, 
Hadst  vanished  from  my  thought ;  entranced  in  prayer, 
I  worshipped  the  Invisible  alone." 

But  besides  these  separate  subtleties,  are  they  mis- 
taken who  see  in  the  unearthly  weirdness  of  the  *'  An- 
cient Mariner,"  and  the  mysterious  witchery  of  "  Chris- 
tabel "  those  very  mental  elements  in  solution  which, 
condensed  and  turned  inward,  would  find  their  most 
congenial  place  in  "  the  exhausting  atmosphere  of  trans- 
cendental ideas  ?  " 

His  third  poetic  epoch  includes  his  whole  sojourn  at 
the  Lakes,  and  the  fourth  the  remainder  of  his  life. 
The  poems  of  these  two  periods  are  few  altogether, 
and  what  there  are,  more  meditative  than  formerly, 
sometimes  even  hopelessly  dejected.  "  Youth  and 
Age,"  written  just  before  leaving  the  Lakes,  with  a 
strangely  aged  tone  for  a  man  of  only  seven  or  eight 
and  thirty,  has  a  quaint  beauty;  to  adapt  its  own 
words,  it  is  like  sadness,  that  "  tells  the  jest  without 
the  smile.".  There  are  some  pieces  of  this  time,  how- 
ever, in  another  strain,  as  the  beautiful  lines  ^  called 
"  The  Knight's  Tomb,"  and  "  Recollections  of  Love." 
After  the  Lake  time,  there  was  still  less  poetry ;  only 
when,  as  in  the  "  Visionary  Hope  "  and  the  "  Pains  of 
Sleep,"  the  too  frequent  despondency  or  severe  suffer- 


150  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

ing  of  his  later  years  sought  relief  in  brief  verse. 
Yet,  belonging  to  the  third  or  fourth  periods,  there  are 
short  gnomic  lines,  in  which,  if  the  visionary  has  dis- 
appeared, the  wisdom  wrought  by  time  and  meditation 
is  excellently  condensed.  Such  are  these  :  — 

"  Frail  creatures  are  we  all  ;  to  be  the  best 

Is  but  the  fewest  faults  to  have; 
Look  thou  then  to  thyself,  and  leave  the  rest 
To  God,  thy  conscience,  and  the  grave." 

Or  the  Complaint  and  Heply  :  — 

"  How  seldom,  friend  !  a  good  great  man  inherits 

Honors  or  wealth  with  all  his  toil  and  pains. 
It  sounds  like  stories  from  the  land  of  spirits, 
If  any  man  obtain  that  which  he  merits, 
Or  any  merit  that  which  he  obtains." 


"  For  shame,  dear  friend  !  forego  this  canting  strain  ; 
What  wouldst  thou  have  the  good  great  man  obtain  ? 
Wealth,  titles,  salary,  a  gilded  chain  ; 
Or  throne  of  corses  which  his  sword  had  slain  ? 
Goodness  and  greatness  are  not  means,  but  ends ! 
Hath  he  not  always  treasures,  always  friends, 
The  good  great  man !  —  Three  treasures,  life,  and  light, 

And  calm  thoughts,  regular  as  infants'  breath ; 
And  three  firm  friends,  more  sure  than  day  and  night,  — 

Himself,  his  Maker,  and  the  Angel  Death." 

If  from  his  own  poetry  we  pass  to  his  judgments  on 
the  poetry  of  others,  we  shall  see  an  exemplification 
of  the  adapted  adage,  "  Set  a  poet  to  catch  a  poet." 
Here  for  once  were  fulfilled  the  necessary  conditions 
of  a  critic  or  judge,  in  the  highest  sense  ;  that  is,  a 
man  possessing  in  himself  abundantly  the  originative 
poetic  faculty  which  he  is  to  judge  of  in  others,  com- 
bined with  that  power  of  generalization  and  delicate, 
patient  analysis  which,  if  poets  possess,  they  but  sel- 
dom express  in  prose.  This  is  but  another  way  of 
saying,  that  before  a  man  can  pass  worthy  judgment 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  151 

on  a  thing,  he  must  know  that  thing  at  first  and  not  at 
second  hand.  The  other  kind  of  critic  is  he  who, 
though  with  little  or  none  of  the  poetic  gift  in  himself, 
has  yet,  from  a  careful  study  of  the  great  master-mod- 
els of  the  art,  deduced  certain  canons  by  which  to 
judge  of  poetry  universally.  But  a  critic  of  this  kind, 
as  the  world  has  many  a  time  seen,  whenever  he  is 
called  upon  to  estimate  some  new  and  original  work  of 
Art,  like  to  which  the  past  supplies  no  models,  is 
wholly  at  fault.  His  canons  no  longer  serve  him,  and 
the  native  sympathetic  insight  he  has  not  To  judge 
aright  in  such  a  case  takes  another  order  of  critic ;  one 
who  knows  after  another  and  more  immediate  manner 
of  knowing;  one  who  does  not  judge  merely  by  what 
the  past  has  done,  but  who,  by  the  poet's  heart  within 
him,  is  made  quick  to  welcome  whatever  new  thing, 
however  seemingly  irregular,  the  young  time  may 
bring  forth.  Such  a  critic  was  Coleridge.  An  imag- 
ination richer  and  more  penetrative  than  that  of  most 
poets  of  his  time  ;  a  power  of  philosophic  reflection 
and  of  subtle  discrimination,  almost  over-active ;  a  sym- 
pathy and  insight  of  marvelous  universality  ;  and  a 
learning  "  laden  with  the  spoils  of  all  times,"  —  these 
things  made  him  the  greatest  —  I  had  almost  said 
the  only  truly  philosophic  —  critic  England  had  yet 
seen. 

Of  his  critical  power,  the  two  most  eminent  exam- 
ples are  his  chapters  on  Wordsworth's  poetry  in  the 
"  Biographia  Literaria,"  and  his  notes  on  Shakespeare 
in  the  "  Literary  Remains."  If  a  man  wished  to  learn 
what  genuine  criticism  should  be,  where  else  in  our 
country's  literature  would  he  find  so  worthy  a  model  as 
in  that  dissertation  on  Wordsworth?  An  excellent 
authority  has  lately  said  that  the  business  of  criticism 
is  "  to  know  the  best  thing  that  is  known  or  thought  in 


152  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

the  world,  and  to  make  this  known  to  others."  In 
these  chapters  on  Wordsworth,  Coleridge  has  done 
something  more  than  this.  In  opposition  to  the  blind 
and  utterly  worthless  criticism  which  Jeffrey  then  rep- 
resented, he  thought  out  for  himself,  and  laid  down 
the  principles  on  which  Wordsworth  or  any  poet  such 
as  he  should.be  judged,  and  showed  these  principles  to 
be  grounded,  not  on  caprices  of  the  hour,  but  on  the 
fundamental  and  permanent  elements  which  human 
nature  contains.  He  gave  definitions  of  poetry  in  its 
essential  nature,  and  showed  more  accurately  than 
Wordsworth  in  his  preface,  wherein  poetry  really  dif- 
fers from  prose.  Let  any  one  who  wishes  to  see  the 
truth  on  these  matters  turn  to  Coleridge's  description 
of  the  poet  and  his  work,  as  they  are  in  their  ideal 
perfection.  Then  how  truly  and  with  what  fine  analy- 
sis he  discriminates  between  the  language  of  prose  and 
of  metre  !  How  good  is  his  account  of  the  origin  of 
metre  !  "  This  I  would  trace  to  the  balance  in  the 
mind,  effected  by  that  spontaneous  effort  which  strives 
to  hold  in  check  the  workings  of  passion."  There  is 
more  to  be  learned  about  poetry  from  a  few  pages  of 
that  dissertation,  confined  though  it  is  to  a  specific 
kind  of  poetry,  than  from  all  the  reviews  that  have 
been  written  in  English  on  poets  and  their  works  from 
Addison  to  the  present  hour.  Nor  is  the  result  of  the 
whole  a  mere  defense  or  indiscriminating  eulogy  on 
Wordsworth,  rudely  as  that  poet  was  then  assailed  by 
those  who  were  also  Coleridge's  own  revilers.  From 
several  of  Wordsworth's  theories  about  poetry  he  dis- 
sents entirely,  especially  from  the  whole  of  his  remarks 
on  the  sameness  of  the  language  of  prose  and  verse. 
At  times,  too,  he  finds  fault  with  his  practice,  and  lays 
his  finger  on  faulty  passages  and  defective  poems 
here  and  there,  in  which  he  traces  the  influence  of 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  153 

false  theory  ;  while  the  true  merits  of  these  poems  he 
places  not  on  mere  blind  preference  or  individual  taste, 
but  on  a  solid  foundation  of  principles.  These  prin- 
ciples few  or  none  at  that  time  acknowledged,  but  they 
have  since  won  the  assent  of  all  competent  judges. 
Canons  of  judgment  they  are,  not  mechanical,  but  liv- 
ing. They  do  not  furnish  the  reader  with  a  set  of 
rules  which  he  can  take  up  and  apply  ready  made. 
But  they  require,  before  they  can  be  used  aright,  to  be 
assimilated  by  thought  —  made  our  own  inwardly. 
They  open  the  eye  to  see,  generate  the  power  of 
seeing  for  one's  self,  call  forth  from  within  a  living 
standard  of  judgment,  which  is  based  on  truth  and 
nature. 

Again,  turning  to  his  criticisms  on  Shakespeare  and 
the  Drama.  They  are  but  brief  notes,  scattered  leaves, 
written  by  himself  or  taken  down  by  others,  from 
lectures  given  mainly  'in  London.  His  lectures  were 
in  general  wholly  oral,  and  are  said  to  have  been  best 
when  delivered  with  no  scrap  of  paper  before  him. 
But  short  as  these  notes  are,  they  mark,  and  helped  to 
cause,  a  revolution  in  men's  ways  of  thinking  about 
Shakespeare.  First  he  taught,  and  himself  exempli- 
fied, that  he  who  would  understand  Shakespeare  must 
not,  Dr.  Johnson-wise,  seat  himself  on  the  critical 
throne,  and  thence  deliver  verdict,  as  on  an  inferior, 
or  at  best  a  mere  equal ;  but  that  he  has  need  to  come 
before  all  things  with  reverence,  as  for  the  poet  of  all 
poets,  and  that,  wanting  this,  he  wants  one  of  the 
senses  the  "  language  of  which  he  is  to  employ." 
Again,  Coleridge  was  the  first  who  clearly  saw  through 
and  boldly  denounced  the  nonsense  that  had  been 
talked  about  Shakespeare's  irregularity  and  extrava- 
gance. Before  his  time  it  had  been  customary  to 
speak  of  Shakespeare  as  of  some  great  abnormal 


154  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

creature,  some  fine  but  rude  barbarian,  full  of  all  sorts 
of  blemishes  and  artistic  solecisms,  which  were  to  be 
tolerated  for  the  sake  of  the  beauties  with  which  they 
were  interlaid.  In  the  face  of  all  this,  he  ventured  to 
ask,  "Are  then  the  plays  of  Shakespeare's  works  of 
rude  and  uncultivated  genius,  in  which  the  splendor  of 
the  parts  compensates  for  the  barbarous  shapelessness 
and  irregularity  of  the  whole  ?  Or  is  the  form  equally 
admirable  with  the  matter,  and  the  judgment  of  the  poet 
not  less  deserving  our  admiration  than  his  genius  ? " 
The  answer  which  he  gave  to  his  own  question,  and 
which  he  enforced  with  manifold  argument,  is  in  effect 
that  the  judgment  of  Shakespeare  is  as  great  as  his 
genius ;  "  nay,  that  its  genius  reveals  itself  in  his  judg- 
ment as  in  its  most  exalted  form."  In  arguing  against 
those  who  at  that  time  "  were  still  trammeled  with  the 
notion  of  the  Greek  unities,  and  who  thought  that 
apologies  were  due  for  Shakespeare's  neglect  of  them," 
he  showed  how  the  form  of  Shakespeare's  dramas  was 
suited  to  the  substance,  not  less  than  the  form  of  the 
Greek  dramas  to  their  substance.  He  pointed  out  the 
contrast  between  mechanical  form  superinduced  from 
without,  and  organic  form  growing  from  within  ;  that 
if  Shakespeare  or  any  modern  were  to  hold  by  the 
Greek  dramatic  unities,  he  would  be  imposing  on  his 
creations  a  dead  form  copied  from  without,  instead  of 
letting  them  shape  themselves  from  within,  and  clothe 
themselves  with  their  own  natural  and  living  form,  as 
the  tree  clothes  itself  with  its  bark.  Another  point 
which  Coleridge  insists  on  in  these  lectures  and 
throughout  his  works,  a  point  often  unheeded,  some- 
times directly  denied,  is  the  close  connection  between 
just  taste  and  pure  morality,  because  true  taste  springs 
out  of  the  ground  of  the  moral  nature  of  man.  I  can- 
not now  follow  him  into  detail,  and  show  the  new 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  155 

light  which  he  has  thrown  on  Shakespeare's  separate 
plays,  and  on  his  leading  characters.  But  it  may  be 
noticed  in  passing,  that  Hamlet  was  the  character  in 
the  exposition  of  which  Coleridge  first  proved  his 
Shakespearean  insight.  In  the  "  Table  Talk  "  he  says, 
"  In  fact,  I  have  a  smack  of  Hamlet  in  myself."  If 
any  one  wishes  to  see  what  a  really  masterly  elucida- 
tion of  a  subtle  character  is,  let  him  turn  to  the 
remarks  on  Hamlet  in  the  second  volume  of  the 
"  Literary  Remains."  This  and  other  of  Coleridge's 
Shakespearean  criticisms  have  been  claimed  for  Schlegel. 
But  most  of  these  had,  I  believe,  been  given  to  the 
world  in  lectures  before  Schlegel's  book  appeared ; 
and  as  to  this  exposition  of  Hamlet,  Hazlitt  bears 
witness  that  he  had  heard  it  from  Coleridge  before  his 
visit  to  Germany  in  1798.  That  view  of  Hamlet  has 
long  since  become  almost  a  commonplace  in  literature, 
but  the  idea  of  it  was  first  conceived  and  expressed  by 
Coleridge.  Some  of  the  other  criticisms  may  be  more 
subtle  than  many  may  care  to  follow.  But  any  one 
who  shall  master  these  notes  on  Shakespeare,  taken  as 
a  whole,  will  find  in  them  more  fine  analysis  of  the 
hidden  things  of  the  heart,  more  truthful  insight  into 
the  workings  of  passion,  than  are  to  be  found  in  whole 
treatises  of  psychology. 

Any  survey  of  Coleridge's  speculations  would  be 
incomplete  if  it  did  not  include  some  account  of  his 
political  philosophy,  which  holds  so  prominent  a  place 
among  them.  Not  that  he  ever  was  a  party  politician, 
—  his  whole  nature  recoiled  from  that  kind  of  work,  — 
but  his  mind  was  too  universal  in  its  range,  his  sym- 
pathy with  all  human  interests  too  strong,  to  have 
allowed  him  to  pass  by  these  questions.  But  the  thor- 
ough and  comprehensive  survey  of  this  department  of 
Coleridge's  thought,  which  occupies  the  greater  part  of 


156  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

Mr.  Mill's  well-known  essay,  makes  any  discussion  of 
this  subject  here  superfluous.  There  is  however  one 
important  point  to  which  this  distinguished  writer  fails 
to  advert.  He  speaks  of  Coleridge  as  an  original 
thinker,  but  "  within  the  bounds  of  traditional  opinions," 
and  as  looking  at  received  beliefs  merely  from  within 
their  pale.  But  it  must  surely  have  been  known  to 
Mr.  Mill  that  Coleridge,  during  his  youth  and  early 
manhood,  stood  as  entirely  outside  of  established  opin- 
ions, and  looked  at  existing  institutions  as  purely  from 
without  as  it  was  possible  to  do.  No  extremest  young 
radical  of  the  present  hour,  when  intellectual  radicalism 
has  once  again  become  a  fashion,  can  question  received 
beliefs  more  freely,  or  assail  the  established  order  more 
fearlessly,  than  Coleridge  did  in  his  fervid  youth.  The 
convictions  on  politics  and  religion,  therefore,  in  which 
he  ultimately  rested,  are  entitled  to  the  .weight,  what- 
ever it  be,  of  having  been  formed  by  one  who  all  his 
life  long  sought  truth  from  every  quarter,  who  for  many 
years  of  his  life  stood  not  within,  but  entirely  outside 
of  traditionary  beliefs ;  and  who,  when  his  thought  had 
gone  full  circle,  became  conservative,  if  that  word  is  to 
be  applied  to  him,  not  from  self-interest  or  expediency, 
or  from  weariness  of  thinking,  but  after  ample  experi- 
ence and  mature  reflection.  With  this  one  remark  on 
his  political  side  I  pass  on. 

Criticism,  such  as  I  have  described  above,  presup 
poses  profound  and  comprehensive  thought  on  questions 
not  lying  within,  but  based  on  wider  principles  beyond, 
itself.  His  critical  studies,  if  nothing  else,  would  have 
driven  Coleridge  back  on  metaphysics.  But  it  was  the 
same  with  whatever  subject  he  took  up,  whether  art  or 
politics,  morals  or  theology.  Everywhere  he  strove  to 
reach  the  bottom,  —  to  grasp  the  living  idea  which  gave 
birth  to  the  system  or  institution,  and  kept  it  alive. 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  157 

Even  in  those  of  his  works,  as  the  "  Literary  Life," 
"  The  Friend,"  and  the  "  Lay  Sermons,"  which  most 
enter  into  practical  details,  the  granite  every  here  and 
there  crops  out,  the  underlying  philosophy  appears. 
But  that  searching  for  fundamental  principles,  which 
seems  to  have  been  in  him  from  the  first  an  intellectual 
necessity,  was  increased  by  the  morbidly  iutrovertive 
turn  of  mind  which,  at  some  stages  of  his  life,  had 
nearly  overbalanced  him.  In  an  often  quoted  passage 
from  the  "  Ode  to  Dejection,"  written  at  Keswick  in 
1802,  he  laments  the  decay  within  himself  of  the  shap- 
ing imagination,  and  says  that  — 

..."  By  abstruse  research  to  steal 
From  my  own  nature  all  the  natural  man ; 
This  was  my  sole  resource,  my  only  plan, 
Till  that  which  suits  a  part  infects  the  whole, 
And  now  is  almost  grown  the  habit  of  my  soul." 

This  passage  opens  a  far  glimpse  into  his  mental 
history.  It  shows  how  metaphysics,  for  which  he  had 
from  the  first  an  innate  propension,  became  from  cir- 
cumstances almost  an  unhealthy  craving.  What  then 
was  his  ultimate  metaphysical  philosophy?  This  is 
not  set  forth  systematically  in  any  of  his  works,  but  we 
are  left  to  gather  it,  as  best  we  can,  from  disquisitions 
scattered  through  them  all.  And  here,  that  unphilo- 
sophical  readers  may  more  clearly  see  Coleridge's  place 
hi  the  world  of  thought,  I  must  recur  to  a  few  elemen- 
tary matters,  which  will  seem  trite  enough  to  philo- 
sophical adepts. 

Every  one  knows  that  from  the  dawn  of  thought 
down  to  the  present  hour,  the  question  as  to  the  origin 
of  knowledge  has  been  the  Sphinx's  riddle  to  philos- 
ophers. This  strange  thing  named  Thought,  what  is 
it?  This  wondrous  fabric  we  call  Knowledge,  whence 
comes  it  ?  It  is  a  web  woven  out  of  something,  but  is 


158  SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE. 

it  wholly  or  chiefly  woven  from  outward  materials,  or 
mainly  wrought  by  self-evolving  powers  from  within  ? 
Or,  if  due  to  the  combined  action  of  these,  what  part 
does  each  contribute  ?  How  much  is  due  to  the  raw 
material,  how  much  to  the  weaver  who  fashions  it? 
These  questions,  even  if  they  be  insoluble,  will  never 
cease  to  provoke  the  curiosity  of  every  new  generation 
of  thoughtful  men.  There  always  has  been  a  set  of 
thinkers  who  have  regarded  outward  things  as  the  fixed 
reality  which  impresses  representations  of  itself  on  mind 
as  on  a  passive  recipient.  There  has  always  existed 
also  another  set,  which  has  held  the  mind  to  be  a  free 
creative  energy,  evolving  from  itself  the  laws  of  its  own 
thinking,  and  stamping  on  outward  things  the  forms 
which  are  inherent  in  its  own  constitution.  The  one 
school  have  held  that  outward  things  are  genetic  of 
knowledge,  and  that  what  are  called  laws  of  thought 
are  wholly  imposed  on  the  mind  by  qualities  which 
belong  primarily  to  outward  things.  The  others  have 
maintained  that  it  is  the  mind  which  is  genetic,  and  that 
it  in  reality  makes  what  it  sees.  This  great  question, 
as  Mr.  Mill  has  well  said,  "  would  not  so  long  have 
remained  a  question,  if  the  more  obvious  arguments  on 
either  side  had  been  unanswerable."  There  must,  how- 
ever, be  a  point  of  view,  if  we  could  reach  it,  from 
which  these  opposing  tendencies  of  thought  shall  be 
seen  to  combine  into  one  harmonious  whole.  But  the 
man  who  shall  achieve  this  final  synthesis,  and  the  age 
which  shall  witness  it,  are  probably  still  far  distant. 
Philosophic  thought  in  Great  Britain  has  in  the  main 
leaned  towards  the  external  side,  towards  that  extreme 
which  makes  the  mind  out  of  the  senses,  and  maintains 
experience  to  be  the  ultimate  ground  of  all  belief. 
This  way  of  thinking,  so  congenial  to  the  prevailing 
English  temper,  dates  from  at  least  as  far  back  as 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  159 

Hobbes,  but  was  first  fairly  established,  almost  like  a 
part  of  the  British  Constitution,  by  the  famous  essay 
of  Locke.  In  bis  polemic  against  innate  ideas  he 
asserted  two  sources  of  all  knowledge.  "  Our  observa- 
tion," he  says,  "  employed  either  about  external  sensible 
things,  or  about  the  internal  operations  of  our  minds 
perceived  and  reflected  on  by  ourselves,  is  that  which 
supplies  our  understandings  with  materials  of  thinking." 
The  latter  of  these  two  sources,  here  somewhat  vaguely 
announced,  was  never  very  strongly  insisted  on  by 
Locke  himself,  and  was  by  his  followers  speedily  dis- 
carded. The  full  development  of  Locke's  system  is 
seen  most  clearly  in  Hume,  who  divided  all  the  mind's 
furniture  into  impressions  or  lively  perceptions,  as  when 
we  see,  hear,  hate,  desire,  will ;  and  ideas  or  faint  per- 
ceptions, which  are  copies  of  our  sensible  or  lively  im- 
pressions. So  that  with  him  all  the  materials  of 
thought  are  derived  from  outward  sense,  or  inward 
sentiment  or  emotion. 

Contemporary  with  Hume,  and  like  him  a  follower 
of  Locke,  Hartley  appeared  at  Cambridge,  and  carried 
out  the  same  views  to  still  more  definite  issues.  He 
gathered  up  and  systematized  the  materialistic  views 
which  were  at  that  time  floating  about  his  University. 
Being,  like  Locke,  a  physician,  he  imported  into  his 
system  a  much  larger  amount  of  his  professional  knowl- 
edge, and  sought  to  explain  the  movements  of  thought 
by  elaborate  physiological  theories.  He  held  that 
nbrations  in  the  white  medullary  substance  of  the 
brain  are  the  immediate  causes  of  sensation,  and  that 
these  first  vibrations  give  birth  to  vibratiuncles  or  min- 
iatures of  themselves,  which  are  conceptions,  or  the 
simple  ideas  of  sensible  things.  In  another  point  he 
differed  from  Locke,  in  that,  discarding  Reflection,  he 
brought  more  prominently  forward  Association,  as  the 


160  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

great  weaving  power  of  the  mental  fabric,  which  com- 
pounds all  our  ideas,  and  gives  birth  to  all  our  faculties. 
Such  theories  as  these  were  the  chief  philosophical 
aliment  to  be  found  in  England  when  Coleridge  was 
a  young  man.  At  Cambridge,  having  entered  Hart- 
ley's college,  where  the  name  of  that  philosopher  was 
still  held  in  honor,  Coleridge  became  his  ardent  dis- 
ciple. In  the  "  Religious  Musings,"  after  Milton  and 
Newton,  he  speaks  of  Hartley  as  — 

"  He  of  mortal  kind 

Wisest;  the  first  who  marked  the  ideal  tribes 
Up  the  fine  fibres  to  the  sentient  brain." 

Materialistic  though  his  system  was,  Hartley  was 
himself  a  believer  in  Christianity,  and  a  religious  man. 
His  philosophical  system  came  to  be  in  high  favor  with 
Priestley  and  the  Unitarians  towards  the  end  of  last 
century ;  so  that  when  Coleridge  became  a  Hartleian, 
he  adopted  Necessitarian  views  of  the  will,  and  Uni- 
tarian tenets  in  religion.  A  Materialist,  a  Necessita- 
rian, a  Unitarian,  such  was  Coleridge  during  his  Cam- 
bridge and  Bristol  sojourn.  But  it  was  not  possible 
that  he  should  be  permanently  holden  of  these  things. 
There  were  ideal  lights  and  moral  yearnings  within 
him  which  these  could  never  satisfy.  The  piece  of 
divinity  that  was  in  him  would  not  always  do  homage 
to  Materialism. 

Before  he  visited  Germany  he  had  begun  to  awake 
out  of  his  Hartleianism.  It  had  occurred  to  him  that 
all  association  —  Hartley's  great  instrument  —  "pre- 
supposes the  existence  of  the  thought  and  images  to 
be  associated."  In  short,  association  cannot  account 
for  its  own  laws.  All  that  association  does  is  to  use 
these  laws,  or  latent  a  priori  forms,  to  wit,  contiguity 
of  time  and  place,  resemblance,  contrast,  so  as  to  bring 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  161 

particular  things  under  them.  When  two  things  have 
been  thus  brought  together  under  one  law  —  say  con- 
tiguity in  time  —  they  may  get  so  connected  in  thought 
that  it  becomes  difficult  to  conceive  them  apart.  But 
it  never  can  be  impossible  so  to  conceive  them ;  that 
is,  to  separate  them  in  thought.  Further,  he  began 
to  see  that  the  hypothesis  of  all  knowledge,  being  de- 
rived from  sense,  does  not  get  rid  of  the  need  of  a 
living  intellectual  framework,  which  makes  these  copies 
from  sensible  impressions.  To  take  his  own  illustra- 
tion, the  existence  of  an  original  picture,  say  Raphael's 
Transfiguration,  does  not  account  for  the  existence  of 
a  copy  of  it ;  but  rather  the  copyist  must  have  put 
forth  the  same  powers,  and  gone  through  the  same 
process,  as  the  first  painter  did  when  he  made  the 
original  picture.  Or  take  that  instance,  which  is  a 
kind  of  standing  Hougoumont  to  sensational  and  ideal- 
istic combatants,  —  I  mean  causality,  or  the  belief  that 
every  event  must  have  a  cause.  Sensationalists,  from 
Hume  to  Mr.  Mill,  have  labored  to  derive  this,  the 
grand  principle  of  all  inductive  reasoning,  from  invari- 
able experience.  Mr.  Mill's  theory,  the  latest  and 
most  accredited  from  that  side,  thus  explains  it.  He 
says  that  we  arrive,  by  simple  enumeration  of  individ- 
ual instances,  first  at  one  and  then  at  another  particu- 
lar uniformity,  till  we  have  collected  a  large  number 
of  such  uniformities,  or  groups  of  cases  in  which  the 
law  of  causation  holds  good.  From  tnis  collection 
of  the  more  obvious  particular  uniformities,  in  all  of 
which  the  law  of  causation  holds,  we  generalize  the 
universal  law  of  causation,  or  the  belief  that  all  things 
whatever  have  a  cause  ;  and  then  we  proceed  to  apply 
this  law  so  generalized  as  an  inductive  instrument  to 
discover  those  other  particular  laws  which  go  to  make 
up  itself,  but  which  have  hitherto  eluded  our  investiga- 
11 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE. 

tion.  Thus,  according  to  this  philosopher,  we  arrive 
at  the  universal  law  by  generalizing  from  many  laws 
of  inferior  generality.  But  as  these  last  do  not  rest 
on  rigid  induction,  but  only  on  simple  enumeration  of 
instances,  the  universal  law  cannot  lay  claim  to  any 
greater  cogency  than  the  inferior  laws  on  which  it 
rests.  One  authenticated  instance  in  which  the  law 
of  causality  does  not  hold  may  upset  our  belief  in  the 
universal  validity  of  that  law.  And  Mr.  Mill  accepts 
this  consequence.  He  finds  no  difficulty  in  conceiving 
that  there  may  be  worlds  in  which  it  is  so  upset  —  in 
which  events  succeed  each  other  at  random,  and  by  no 
fixed  law.  But  this  is  really  a  reductio  ad  absurdum. 
This  world  of  causeless  disorder,  which  Mr.  Mill  finds 
no  difficulty  in  conceiving,  is  simply  inconceivable  by 
any  intelligence.  If  such  a  world  were  proved  to 
exist,  we  should  be  compelled  to  believe  that  for  this 
absence  of  order  there  is  a  cause,  or  group  of  causes  ; 
just  as  we  know  there  is  a  cause,  or  group  of  causes, 
for  the  presence  of  that  order  which  we  know  to  exist 
as  far  as  our  knowledge  extends.  This  necessity  to 
think  a  cause  for  every  existence  or  event,  a  necessity 
which  we  cannot  get  rid  of,  forms  the  essential  pecul- 
iarity of  the  notion  of  causality ;  marking  it  out  as  a 
necessary  form  of  thought,  born  from  within,  and  not 
gathered  from  experience.  That  which  is  created  by 
experience  is  strengthened  by  the  same.  But  this 
belief  that  every  event  must  have  a  cause,  is  one 
which,  as  soon  as  we  have  clearly  comprehended  the 
terms,  we  feel  to  be  inevitable.  Experience,  no  doubt, 
first  brings  this  cognition  out  into  distinct  conscious- 
ness ;  but  as  soon  as  we  reflect  on  it,  we  discover  that 
it  must  have  been  present  as  a  constituent  element 
of  that  very  experience.  Of  causality,  then,  it  may  be 
said,  what  an  able  young  metaphysician  has  lately  said 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  163 

of  time  and  space,  "Themselves  cognitions  general- 
ized from  experience,  and,  in  that  point  of  view,  later 
than  experience ;  they  are  discovered  to  have  been 
also  elements  of  those  very  cognitions  of  experience 
from  which  they  have  been  generalized,  present  in 
them  as  constituent  elements,  undistinguished  before 

analysis They  are  elements  of  any  and  every 

particular  experience,  entering  into  every  one  of  them 
as  ita  necessary  form."  Or,  as  Coleridge  put  it, 
"  Though  first  revealed  to  us  by  experience,  they  must 
yet  have  preexisted  in  order  to  make  experience  itself 
possible ;  even  as  the  eye  must  exist  previously  to  any 
particular  act  of  seeing,  though  by  sight  only  can  we 
know  that  we  have  eyes."  And  again,  "  How  can  we 
make  bricks  without  straw,  or  build  without  cement  ? 
We  learn  things,  indeed,  by  occasion  of  experience ; 
but  the  very  facts  so  learned  force  us  inward  on  the 
antecedents  that  must  be  presupposed  in  order  to  ren- 
der experience  itself  possible." 

These  and  such  like  thoughts  were  sure  to  arise  in  a 
mind  naturally  so  open  to  the  idealistic  side  of  thought 
as  that  of  Coleridge,  and  to  shake  to  pieces  the  mate- 
rialistic fabric  in  which  he  had  for  a  time  ensconced 
himself.  And  not  merely  intellectual  misgivings  would 
work  this  way.  but  the  soul's  deeper  cravings.  Driven 
by  hunger  of  heart,  he  wandered  from  the  school  of 
Locke  and  Hartley,  successively  on  through  those  of 
Berkeley,  Leibnitz,  and,  I  believe,  Spinoza,  and  finding 
in  them  no  abiding  place,  began  to  despair  of  philoso- 
phy. To  this  crisis  of  his  history  probably  apply  these 
words :  — 

"  I  found  myself  all  afloat.  Doubts  rushed  in,  broke 
upon  me  from  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep,  and  fell 
from  the  windows  of  heaven.  The  fontal  truths  of 
natural  religion  and  the  books  of  revelation  alike  con- 


164  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

tributed  to  the  flood ;  and  it  was  long  ere  my  '  ark 
touched  on  an  Ararat  and  rested.'  '* 

About  this  time  he  fell  in  with  the  works  of  the 
German  and  other  mystics  —  Tauler,  Bohmen,  George 
Fox,  and  William  Law,  and  in  them  he  found  the 
same  kind  of  help  which  Luther  had  found  in  Tau- 
ler:  — 

"The  writings  of  these  mystics  acted  in  no  slight 
degree  to  prevent  my  mind  from  being  imprisoned 
within  the  outline  of  any  single  dogmatic  system. 
They  helped  to  keep  alive  the  heart  within  the  head ; 
gave  me  an  indistinct  yet  stirring  presentiment  that  all 
the  products  of  the  mere  reflective  faculty  partook  of 
death,  and  were  as  the  rattling  twigs  and  sprays  in 
winter,  into  which  a  sap  was  yet  to  be  propelled  from 
some  root  to  which  I  had  not  as  yet  penetrated,  if  they 
were  to  afford  my  soul  food  or  shelter.  If  they  (the 
mystics)  were  a  moving  cloud  of  smoke  to  me  by  day, 
yet  were  they  a  pillar  of  fire  throughout  the  night, 
during  my  wanderings  through  the  wilderness  of  doubt, 
and  enabled  me  to  skirt,  without  crossing,  the  sandy 
deserts  of  utter  unbelief." 

It  was  in  the  company  of  these  men  that  he  first 
got  clear  of  the  trammels  of  the  mere  understanding, 
and  learned  that  there  is  higher  truth  than  that  faculty 
can  compass  and  circumscribe.  The  learned  seemed  to 
him  for  several  generations  to  have  walked  entirely  by 
the  light  of  this  mere  understanding,  and  to  have  con- 
fined their  investigations  strictly  within  certain  conven- 
tional limits,  beyond  which  lay  all  that  is  most  interest- 
ing and  vital  to  man.  To  enthusiasts,  illiterate  and 
simple  men  of  heart,  they  left  it  to  penetrate  towards 
the  inmost  centre,  "  the  indwelling  and  living  ground 
of  all  things."  And  then  he  came  to  this  conviction, 
which  he  never  afterwards  abandoned,  that  if  the  in- 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  165 

tellect  will  acknowledge  a  higher  and  deeper  ground 
than  it  contains  within  itself,  if,  making  itself  the  cen- 
tre of  its  system,  it  seeks  to  square  all  things  by  its 
own  laws,  it  must,  if  it  follows  out  fearlessly  its  own 
reasoning,  land  in  Pantheism  or  in  some  form  of  blank 
unbelief. 

While  his  mind  was  seething  with  these  thoughts  it 
was  that  he  first  studied  the  works  of  Kant,  and  these 
he  says,  took  hold  of  him  as  with  a  giant's  hand. 
Henceforth  his  metaphysical  creed  was  moulded  mainly 
by  the  Kantian  principles.  This  is  not  the  place  to 
attempt  to  enter  on  the  slightest  exposition  of  these. 
But,  to  speak  popularly,  it  may  be  said  that  the  gist  of 
Kant's  system  is  not  to  make  the  mind  out  of  the 
senses  as  Hume  had  done,  but  the  senses  out  of  the 
mind.  As  Locke  and  Hume  had  started  from  without, 
so  he  started  from  within,  making  the  one  fixed  truth, 
the  only  ground  of  reality)  to  consist,  not  in  that  which 
the  senses  furnish,  but  in  that  which  the  understanding 
supplies  to  make  sensible  knowledge  possible.  His 
prime  question  was,  How  is  experience  possible  ?  And 
this  possibility  he  found  in  the  a  priori  forms  of  the 
sensory,  time  and  space,  and  in  the  a  priori  forms  or 
categories  of  the  understanding,  which  by  their  activity 
bind  together  into  one  the  multifarious  and  otherwise 
unintelligent  intimations  of  sense.  It  is  sense  that 
supplies  the  understanding  with  the  raw  material ;  this 
the  understanding  passes  through  its  machinery,  and, 
by  virtue  of  its  inherent  concept-forms,  reduces  it  to 
order,  makes  it  conceivable  and  intelligible.  But  the 
understanding  is  limited  in  its  operation  to  phenomena 
of  experience,  and  whenever  it  steps  beyond  these  and 
applies  its  categories  to  supersensible  things,  it  lands 
itself  in  contradictions.  It  cannot  arrive  at  any  other 
truth  than  that  which  is  valid  within  man's  experience. 


166  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

Ultimate  truths,  valid  for  all  intelligents,  if  such  there 
be,  are  beyond  its  reach. 

Had  Kant's  philosophy  stopped  here,  it  would  not 
have  done  much  more  for  Coleridge  than  Locke's  and 
Hartley's  had  done.  It  was  because  Kant  asserted  the 
existence  in  man  of  another  power,  distinct  from  and 
higher  than  understanding,  namely  Reason,  that  Cole- 
ridge found  him  so  helpful.  The  term  Reason  Kant 
employed  in  another  than  our  ordinary  sense,  as  the 
faculty  of  ultimate  truths  or  necessary  principles.  He 
distinguished,  however,  between  Reason  in  its  specula- 
tive and  in  its  practical  use.  Speculative  Reason  he 
held  to  be  exclusively  a  regulative  faculty,  having  only 
a  formal  and  logical  use.  This  use  is  to  connect  our 
judgments  together  into  conclusions,  according  to  the 
three  forms  of  reasoning  —  the  categorical,  the  hypo- 
thetical, and  the  disjunctive.  These  three  methods  are 
the  ideas  of  Speculative  Reason  by  which  it  strives  to 
produce  unity  and  perfectness  among  the  judgments  of 
the  understanding.  As  long  as  the  ideas  of  Specula- 
tive Reason  are  thus  used  to  control  and  bring  into 
unity  the  conceptions  of  the  discursive  understanding, 
they  are  used  rightly,  and  within  their  own  legitimate 
sphere.  But  whenever  Speculative  Reason  tries  to 
elevate  these  regulative  ideas  into  objects  of  theoretical 
knowledge,  whenever  it  ascribes  objective  truth  to 
these  ideas,  it  leads  to  contradiction  and  falsehood.  In 
other  words,  Speculative  Reason  Kant  held  to  be  true 
in  its  formal  or  logical,  but  false  in  its  material  applica- 
tion. As  the  understanding,  with  its  categories,  has  for 
its  object  and  only  legitimate  sphere  the  world  of  sense, 
so  Speculative  Reason,  with  its  ideas,  has  for  its  exclu- 
sive sphere,  of  operation  the  conceptions  of  the  under- 
standing, and  beyond  this  these  ideas  have  no  truth  or 
validity.  It  was  not,  however,  by  these  views,  either 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  167 

of  Understanding  or  of  Speculative  Reason,  that  Kant 
came  to  the  help  of  the  highest  interests  of  humanity, 
but  by  his  assertion  of  the  existence  in  man  of  the 
Practical  Reason  which  is  the  sufficient  warrant  for  our 
belief  in  moral  and  supersensuous  truth.  Some  have 
maintained  this  to  be  an  afterthought  added  on  some- 
what discordantly  to  the  rest  of  Kant's  system.  But, 
.  be  this  as  it  may,  Kant  held  that  the  moral  law  re- 
vealed itself  to  man  as  a  reality  through  bis  Practical 
Reason  —  a  law  not  to  be  gathered  from  experience, 
but  to  be  received  as  a  fundamental  principle  of  action 
for  man,  evidencing  itself  by  its  own  light.  This 
moral  law  requires  for  its  action  the  truth  of  three 
ideas,  that  of  the  soul,  of  immortality,  and  of  God. 
These  ideas  are  the  postulates  of  the  practical  reason, 
and  are  true  and  certain,  because,  if  they  are  denied, 
morality  and  free-will,  man's  highest  certainties,  become 
impossible.  They  are,  however,  to  man  truths  of 
moral  cogency  —  of  practical  faith,  though  Kant  did 
not  use  this  last  expression,  —  rather  than  objects  of 
scientific  certitude. 

This  distinction  between  the  Understanding  and  the 
Reason  Coleridge  adopted  from  Kant,  and  made  the 
groundwork  of  all  his  teaching.  But  the  distinction 
between  Speculative  and  Practical  Reason,  which  was 
with  Kant  radical,  Coleridge  did  not  dwell  on,  nor 
bring  into  prominence.  He  knew  and  so  far  recog- 
nized Kant's  distinction,  that  he  spoke  of  Speculative 
Reason  as  the  faculty  of  concluding  universal  and  nec- 
essary truths  from  particular  and  contingent  appear- 
ances, and  of  Practical  Reason  as  the  power  of  pro- 
posing an  ultimate  end,  that  is,  of  determining  the  will 
by  ideas.  He  does  not,  however,  seem  to  have  held 
by  it  firmly.  Rather,  he  threw  himself  mainly  on 
Kant's  view  of  Practical  Reason,  and  carried  it  out 


168  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

with  a  boldness  which  Kant  would  have  probably  dis- 
allowed. Kant's  strong  assertion  that  there  was  at 
least  one  region  of  his  being  in  which  man  comes  into 
contact  with  supersensible  truth,  with  the  reality  of 
things,  this,  set  forth  not  vaguely,  but  with  the  most 
solid  reasoning,  was  that  which  so  attracted  Coleridge. 
But  in  the  use  which  Coleridge  made  of  this  power, 
and  the  range  he  assigned  it,  he  went  much  beyond  his 
master.  He  speaks  of  Reason  as  an  immediate  be- 
holding of  supersensible  things,  as  the  eye  which  sees 
truths  transcending  sense.  He  identifies  Reason  in 
the  human  mind,  as  Kant  perhaps  would  have  done, 
with  Universal  Reason ;  calls  it  impersonal ;  indeed, 
regards  it  as  a  ray  of  the  Divinity  in  man.  In  one 
place  he  makes  it  one  with  the  light  which  lighteth 
every  man,  and  in  another  he  says  that  Reason  is  "  the 
presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  finite  understanding, 
at  once  the  light  and  the  inward  eye."  "  It  cannot  be 
rightly  called  a  faculty,"  he  says,  "  much  less  a  per- 
sonal property  of  any  human  mind."  We  cannot  be 
said  to  possess  Reason,  but  rather  to  partake  of  it ;  for 
there  is  but  one  Reason,  which  is  shared  by  all  intelli- 
gent beings,  and  is  in  itself  the  universal  or  Supreme 
Reason.  "  He  in  whom  Reason  dwells  can  as  little 
appropriate  it  as  his  own  possession,  as  he  can  claim 
ownership  hi  the  breathing  air,  or  make  an  inclosure 
in  the  cope  of  heaven."  Again,  he  says  of  Reason, 
that  "  it  has  been  said  to  be  more  like  to  sense  than  to 
understanding  ;  but  in  this  it  differs  from  sense :  the 
bodily  senses  have  objects  differing  from  themselves ; 
Reason,  the  organ  of  spiritual  apprehension,  has  ob- 
jects consubstantial  with  itself,  being  itself  its  own 
object,  —  that  is,  self-contemplative."  And,  again, 
"  Reason  substantiated  and  vital,  one  only,  yet  mani- 
fold, overseeing  all,  and  going  through  all  understanding, 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  169 

without  being  either  the  sense,  the  understanding,  or 
the  imagination,  contains  all  three  within  itself,  even 
as  the  mind  contains  its  own  thoughts,  and  is  present 
in  and  through  them  all ;  or  as  the  expression  pervades 
the  different  features  of  an  intelligent  countenance." 

In  much  of  the  above,  Coleridge  has  not  only  gone 
beyond  Kant's  cautious  handling  of  Practical  Reason, 
but  has  given  to  the  German's  philosophical  language  a 
religious,  and  even  a  Biblical,  coloring  of  his  own. 
Nay,  in  regarding  Reason  as  the  power  of  intuitive 
insight  into  moral  and  spiritual  truths,  he  has  ap- 
proached nearer  to  some  of  the  German  philosophers 
who  came  after  Kant.  Though  Coleridge  made  so 
much  of  this  distinction  between  Reason  and  Under- 
standing, and  of  Reason  as  the  organ  of  spiritual  truth, 
and  though  throughout  his  later  works  he  is  continually 
insisting  on  it  as  a  fundamental  principle,  yet  he  cannot 
be  said  to  have  made  it  secure  against  the  objections  of 
assailants. 

It  is  a  theory  to  account  for  certain  great  facts  of 
mental  experience,  and  like  every  theory  it  must  be 
tested  by  its  fitness  to  explain  the  facts,  and  to  solve 
the  chief  difficulties  they  present.  The  facts  are  these. 
Amid  the  objects  of  thought  we  find  a  large  number  of 
which  we  can  form  distinct,  well-rounded  conceptions, 
and  from  these  conceptions  so  formed,  we  can  deduce 
accurate  trains  of  reasoning.  Another  portion  of  the 
things  which  occupy  our  thoughts  are  of  such  a  nature 
that,  if  truths  at  all,  they  are  transcendent  truths.  The 
best  conceptions  we  can  form  of  them  we  feel  to  be 
defective  and  inadequate,  not  presenting  to  us  the  idea 
as  it  truly  is,  but  only  hinting  it  through  "  feeble  anal- 
ogies and  approximations."  Such  objects  of  thought, 
it  is  often  said,  we  apprehend,  but  cannot  comprehend. 
To  this  latter  category  belong  the  fundamental  truths 


170  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

of  morals  and  religion,  those  primal  faiths  on  which 
man's  spiritual  nature  rests.  But  the  logical  faculty 
ever  tends,  if  left  to  itself,  to  ignore  or  even  deny  the 
reality  of  this  whole  order  of  truths,  because  they  can- 
not be  reduced  to  that  clear-cut  precision  after  which 
this  faculty  ever  strives.  And  philosophers,  whose 
vocation  it  is  to  exercise  this  faculty,  and  in  all  subjects 
to  seek  for  reasoned  truth,  are  prone  to  become  the 
victims  of  the  instrument  which  they  use,  and  to  deny 
the  existence,  for  us  at  least,  of  whatever  cannot  be 
shaped  into  clear  conceptions,  and  made  fast  in  the  grip 
of  conclusive  logic.  They  ever  tend  to  circumscribe 
the  orb  of  belief,  and  to  narrow  it  within  exactly  the 
same  limits  as  the  orb  of  logical  conception.  If  this 
tendency  had  full  way,  what  place  would  be  found  for 
all  the  higher  side  of  man's  being,  for  those  truths  by 
which  the  spirit  lives,  those  primal  truths  which,  though 
transcendent,  and  hard  to  grasp, — 

"  Are  yet  the  master  light  of  all  our  seeing  ?  " 

It  was  to  vindicate  the  validity  of  these  truths,  and  to 
show  that  though  man's  thought  cannot  fully  compass 
them,  they  are  not  less  real,  and  far  more  vital,  than 
the  conclusions  of  the  most  irrefragable  logic,  that 
Coleridge  insisted  so  earnestly  on  his  doctrine  of  the 
distinction  between  Reason  and  Understanding. 

That  in  making  this  distinction  he  was  striving  to 
utter  a  deep  spiritual  truth,  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
all  human  thought,  I  fully  believe.  But  whether  he 
has  succeeded  in  uttering  it  in  the  best,  most  unassail- 
able shape,  may  well  be  made  a  question.  It  is  not 
easy  to  meet  the  old  challenge,  "  Name  a  certain  num- 
ber of  propositions  which  are  products  to  the  Reason, 
and  as  many  more  which  belong  to  the  Understanding, 
lhat  we  may  compare  the  two  sets,  and  learn  to  ap- 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  171 

preciate  the  distinction."  Since  all  truths,  from  what- 
ever source  they  come,  must,  before  they  can  be  re- 
duced to  definite  conceptions,  and  expressed  in  proposi- 
tions, first  have  passed  through  the  moulds  of  the 
understanding,  it  seems  hardly  possible  to  produce  a 
single  truth,  unless  it  be  the  law  of  contradiction,  and 
the  other  necessary  laws  of  formal  logic,  which  is  the 
pure  mint  of  the  reason,  unalloyed  by  contact  with  the 
understanding.  A  close  examination  would,  I  believe, 
show  that  what  Coleridge  called  truths  of  the  reason 
are  mainly  those  moral  and  spiritual  faiths,  the  posses- 
sion of  which  makes  man  a  moral  being.  Though  they 
are  born  undoubtedly  in  another  region  than  the  under- 
standing, yet  before  they  can  become  distinct  objects 
of  reflection,  they  must  have  been  shaped  by  intellectual 
moulds,  and  expressed  in  linguistic  terms,  which,  as 
regards  the  truths  themselves,  are  but  poor  and  in- 
adequate accommodations.  Coleridge  recognized  the 
necessity  of  this  process,  but  maintained  that  it  was  to 
him  no  argument  against  a  truth  of  reason,  if,  after 
passing  through  the  logical  process,  it  issued  in  proposi- 
tions which  seem  illogical  and  contradictory.  To  this, 
one  of  the  uninitiated  might  naturally  reply,  "  It  may 
be  so  ;  but  if  your  truths  of  the  reason  when  attempted 
to  be  logically  expressed  issue  in  contradictions,  by 
what  test  am  I  to  distinguish  such  a  truth  of  reason 
from  absolute  nonsense  ?  "  A  satisfactory  reply  to  such 
a  querist  I  do  not  know  that  Coleridge  has  ever  fur- 
nished. On  the  whole,  it  would  seem  that  Reason,  as 
he  used  it,  is  but  another  and  perhaps  not  better  name 
for  what,  hi  vague  popular  phrase,  is  known  as  man's 
moral  and  spiritual  nature.  His  truths  of  Reason  are 
that  which  is  essential  and  primitive  hi  this  nature,-— 
those  elemental  truths,  which  we  cannot  adequately 
grasp,  but  on  which  we  are  in  the  last  resort  constrained 


172  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLEEIDGE. 

to  fall  back,  as  the  ultimate  ground  of  all  belief  — 
indeed,  as  the  very  substratum  of  our  being.  If  to 
vindicate  fully  this  transcendent  side  of  being,  to  show 
how  it  is  cogitable,  and  in  harmony  with  logical  thought 
and  with  all  other  truth,  if  this  be  the  great  aim  of 
philosophy,  it  cannot  be  said  that  Coleridge  has  fully 
accomplished  it.  On  the  other  hand,  at  a  time  when 
philosophy  had  almost  forgotten  the  problem,  and  dis- 
carded the  higher  truths  as  mere  fanatical  chimeras,  to 
have  brought  the  question  once  more  into  court,  to 
have  reasserted  the  reality  and  the  preeminence  of 
the  spiritual  verities,  to  have  pressed  for  their  admit- 
tance into  and  reconciliation  with  men's  ordinary  ways 
of  thinking;  this  was  good  service,  and  this  service 
Coleridge  did. 

A  good  example  of  the  way  in  which  Coleridge  ap- 
plied his  metaphysical  principles  to  philosophic  ques- 
tions will  be  found  in  the  Essays  on  Method,  in  the 
third  volume  of  "  The  Friend."  He  there  attempts  to 
reconcile  Plato's  view  of  the  Idea  as  lying  at  the 
ground  of  all  investigation  with  Bacon's  philosophy  of 
induction,  and  to  prove  that,  though  they  worked  from 
opposite  ends  of  the  problem,  they  are  not  really  op- 
posed. In  all  inductive  investigations,  Coleridge  con- 
tends, the  mind  must  contribute  something,  the  mental 
initiative,  the  prudens  qutestio,  the  idea ;  and  this,  when 
tested  or  proved  by  rigorous  scientific  processes,  is 
found  to  be  a  law  of  nature.  What  in  the  mind  of  the 
discoverer  is  a  prophetic  idea,  is  found  in  nature  to  be 
a  law,  and  the  one  answers,  and  is  akin  to  the  other. 
What  Coleridge  has  there  said  of  the  mental  initiative 
which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  induction,  Dr.  Whewell 
has  taken  up  and  argued  out  at  length  in  his  works  on 
Induction.  Mr.  Mill  has  as  stoutly  redargued  it  from 
his  own  point  of  view,  and  their  polemic  still  waits  a 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  173 

solution.  But  I  must  pass  from  these  pure  metaphysi- 
cal questions  to  notice  some  of  the  ways  in  which  Cole- 
ridge applied  his  principles  to  moral  and  religious  ques- 
tions. 

In  the  "  Literary  Remains "  there  is  a  remarkable 
essay  on  Faith,  which  contains  a  suggestive  application 
of  these  principles.  Faith  he  defines  to  be  fealty  or 
fidelity  to  that  part  of  our  being  which  cannot  become 
an  object  of  the  senses ;  to  that  in  us  which  is  highest, 
and  is  alone  unconditionally  imperative.  What  is 
this  ?  Every  man  is  conscious  of  something  within 
him  which  tells  him  he  ought,  which  commands  him,  to 
do  to  others  as  he  would  they  should  do  to  him.  Of 
this  he  is  as  assured  as  he  is  that  he  sees  and  hears  ; 
only  with  this  difference,  that  the  senses  act  independ- 
ently of  the  will ;  whereas,  the  conscience  is  essen- 
tially connected  with  the  will.  We  can,  if  we  will, 
refuse  to  listen  to  it.  The  listening  or  the  not  listen- 
ing to  conscience  is  the  first  moral  act  by  which  a  man 
takes  upon  him  or  refuses  allegiance  to  a  power  higher 
than  himself,  yet  speaking  within  himself.  Now,  what 
is  this  in  each  man,  higher  than  himself,  yet  speaking 
within  him  ?  It  is  Reason,  supersensuous,  impersonal, 
the  representative  in  man  of  the  will  of  God  ;  and  de- 
manding the  allegiance  of  the  individual  will.  Faith 
then  is  fealty  to  this  rightful  superior ;  "  allegiance  of 
the  moral  nature  to  Universal  Reason,  or  the  will  of 
God  ;  in  opposition  to  all  usurpation  whether  of  appe- 
tite, or  of  sensible  objects,  or  of  the  finite  understand- 
ing," or  of  affection  to  others,  be  it  even  the  purest 
love  of  the  creature.  And  conscience  is  the  inward 
witness  to  the  presence  in  us  of  the  divine  ray  of  rea- 
son, "  which  is  the  irradiative  power,  the  representative 
of  the  Infinite."  An  approving  conscience  is  the  sense 
of  harmony  of  the  personal  will  of  man  with  that  im- 


174  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

personal  light  which  is  in  him,  representative  of  the 
will  of  God.  A  condemning  conscience  is  the  sense 
of  discord  or  contrariety  between  these  two.  Faith, 
then,  consists  in  the  union  and  interpenetration  of  the 
•Reason  and  the  individual  will.  Since  our  will  and 
moral  nature  enter  into  it,  faith  must  be  a  continuous 
and  total  energy  of  the  whole  man.  Since  Reason 
enters  into  it,  faith  must  be  a  light  —  a  seeing,  a  be- 
holding of  truth.  Hence  faith  is  a  spiritual  act  of  the 
whole  being  ;  it  is  "  the  source  and  germ  of  the  fidelity 
of  man  to  God,  by  the  entire  subjugation  of  the  human 
will  to  Reason,  as  the  representative  in  Him  of  the 
divine  will."  Such  is  a  condensation,  nearly  hi  Cole- 
ridge's own  words,  of  the  substance  of  that  essay. 
Hard  words  and  repulsive  these  may  seem  to  some, 
who  feel  it  painful  to  analyze  the  faith  they  live  by. 
And  no  doubt  the  simple  childlike  apprehension  of  the 
things  of  faith  is  better  and  more  blessed  than  all  phi- 
losophizing about  them.  They  who  have  good  health 
and  light  breathing,  whose  system  is  so  sound  that  they 
know  not  they  have  a  system,  have  little  turn  for  dis- 
quisitions on  health  and  respiration.  But,  just  as  sick- 
ness and  disease  have  compelled  men  to  study  the 
bodily  framework,  so  doubt  and  mental  entanglement 
have  forced  men  to  go  into  these  abstruse  questions  in 
order  to  meet  the  philosophy  of  denial  with  a  counter 
philosophy  of  faith.  The  philosophy  is  not  faith,  but 
it  may  help  to  clear  away  sophistications  that  stand  hi 
the  way  of  it. 

For  entering  into  speculations  of  this  kind,  Cole- 
ridge has  been  branded  as  a  transcendentalist,  —  a 
word  with  many  of  hideous  import.  But  abstruse  and 
wide  of  practice  as  these  speculations  may  seem,  it  was 
for  practical  behoof  mainly  that  Coleridge  undertook 
them.  "  What  are  my  metaphysics  ?  "  he  exclaims  ; 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGK  175 

u  merely  the  referring  of  the  mind  to  its  own  conscious- 
ness for  truths  which  are  indispensable  to  its  own  hap- 
piness." Of  this  any  one  may  be  convinced  who  shall 
read  with  care  his  "  Friend  "  or  his  "  Lay  Sermons." 
One  great  source  of  the  difficulty,  or,  as  some  might 
call  it,  the  confusedness  of  these  works,  is  the  rush  and 
throng  of  human  interests  with  which  they  are  filled. 
If  he  discusses  the  ideas  of  Reason,  or  any  other  like 
abstract  subject,  it  is  because  he  feels  its  vital  bearing 
on  some  truth  of  politics,  morality,  or  religion,  the 
clear  understanding  of  which  concerns  the  common 
weal.  And  here  is  one  of  his  strongest  mental  pecul- 
iarities, which  has  made  many  censure  him  as  unintel- 
ligible. His  eye  flashed  with  a  lightning  glance  from 
most  abstract  truth  to  the  minutest  practical  detail,  and 
back  again  from  this  to  the  abstract  principle.  This 
makes  that,  when  once  his  mental  powers  begin  to 
work,  their  movements  are  on  a  vastness  of  scale,  and 
with  a  many-sidedness  of  view,  which,  if  they  render 
him  hard  to  follow,  make  him  also  stimulative  and  sug- 
gestive of  thought  beyond  all  other  modern  writers. 

When  Coleridge  first  began  to  speculate,  the  sover- 
eignty of  Locke  and  his  followers  in  English  Metaphys- 
ics was  not  more  supreme  than  that  of  Paley  in  Moral 
Philosophy.  Both  were  Englishmen  of  the  round  ro- 
bust English  stamp,  haters  of  subtleties,  abhorrent  of 
idealism,  resolute  to  warn  off  any  ghost  of  scholasticism 
from  the  domain  of  common-sense  philosophy.  And 
yet  both  had  to  lay  down  dogmatic  decisions  on  sub- 
jects into  which,  despite  the  burliest  common  sense, 
things  infinite  and  spiritual  will  intrude.  How  resolute 
was  Coleridge's  polemic  against  Locke  and  all  his 
school,  we  have  seen.  Not  less  vigorous  was  his  pro- 
test against  Paley  as  a  moralist,  and  that  at  a  time 
when  few  voices  were  raised  against  the  common-sense 
Dean. 


176  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

For  completely  rounded  moral  systems  Coleridge 
indeed  professed  little  respect,  ranking  them  for  utility 
with  systems  of  casuistry  or  auricular  confession.  But 
of  vital  principles  of  morality,  penetrating  to  the  quick, 
few  men's  writings  are  more  fruitful.  A  standing 
butt  for  Coleridge's  shafts  was  Paley's  well-known 
definition  of  virtue  as  "  the  doing  of  good  to  mankind, 
in  obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  and  fbr  the  sake  of 
everlasting  happiness."  Or,  as  Paley  has  elsewhere 
more  broadly  laid  down  the  same  principle,  "  we  are 
obliged  to  do  nothing,  but  what  we  ourselves  are  to 
gain  or  lose  something  by,  for  nothing  else  can  be  a 
violent  motive."  Against  this  substitution,  as  he  called 
it,  of  a  scheme  of  selfish  prudence  for  moral  virtue, 
Coleridge  was  never  weary  of  raising  his  voice.  Mo- 
rality, as  he  contended,  arises  out  of  the  Reason  and 
Conscience  of  man;  prudence  out  of  the  Understand- 
ing, and  the  natural  wants  and  desires  of  the  individ- 
ual; and  though  prudence  is  the  worthy  servant  of 
morality,  the  master  and  the  servant  must  not  be  con- 
founded. The  chapter  in  "  The  Friend,"  in  which 
he  argues  against  the  Utilitarian  system  of  ethics,  and 
proves  that  general  consequences  cannot  be  the  crite- 
rion of  the  right  and  wrong  of  particular  actions,  is 
one  of  the  best  reasoned  and  most  valuable  which  that 
work  contains.  The  following  are  some  of  the  argu- 
ments with  which  he  contends  against  "  the  inadequacy 
of  the  principle  of  general  consequences  as  a  criterion 
of  right  and  wrong,  and  its  utter  uselessness  as  a  moral 
guide."  Such  a  criterion  is  vague  and  illusory,  for 
it  depends  on  each  man's  notion  of  happiness,  and  no 
two  men  have  exactly  the  same  notion.  And  even 
if  men  were  agreed  as  to  what  constitutes  the  end, 
namely,  happiness,  the  power  of  calculating  conse- 
quences, and  the  foresight  needed  to  secure  the  means 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGK  177 

to  the  end,  are  just  that  in  which  men  most  differ. 
But  morality  ought  to  be  grounded  on  that  part  of 
their  nature,  namely,  their  moral  convictions,  in  which 
men  are  most  alike,  not  on  the  calculating  understand- 
ing, in  which  they  most  differ.  Again,  such  a  criterion 
confounds  morality,  which  looks  to  the  inward  motive, 
with  law,  which  regards  only  the  outward  act.  Indeed, 
the  need  of  a  judgment  of  actions  according  to  the 
inward  motive,  forms  one  of  the  strongest  arguments 
for  a  future  state.  For  in  this  world  our  outward 
actions,  apart  from  their  motives,  must  needs  deter- 
mine our  temporal  welfare.  But  the  moral  nature 
longs  for,  and  Scripture  reveals,  a  more  perfect  judg- 
ment to  come,  wherein  not  the  outward  act  but  the 
inward  principle,  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart, 
shall  be  made  the  ground  of  judgment.  Again,  this 
criterion  is  illusory,  because  evil  actions  are  often 
turned  to  good  by  that  Providence  which  brings  good 
out  of  evil.  If,  then,  consequences  were  the  sole  or 
chief  criterion,  then  these  evil  actions  ought  to  be, 
because  of  their  results,  reckoned  good.  Nero  perse- 
cuted the  Christians,  and  so  spread  Christianity :  is  he 
to  be  credited  with  this  good  result?  Again,  to  form 
a  notion  of  the  nature  of  an  action  multiplied  indefi- 
nitely into  the  future,  we  must  first  know  the  nature 
of  the  original  action  itself.  And  if  we  already  know 
this,  what  need  of  testing  it  by  its  remote  consequences  ? 
If  against  these  arguments  it  were  urged  that  general 
consequences  are  the  criterion,  not  of  the  agent  but  of 
the  action,  Coleridge  would  reply  that  all  actions  have 
their  whole  worth  and  main  value  from  the  moral 
principle  which  actuates  the  agent.  So  that  if  it  could 
be  shown  that  two  men,  one  acting  from  enlightened 
self-love,  the  other  from  pure  Christian  principle,  would 
observe  towards  all  their  neighbors  throughout  life 
12 


178  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

exactly  the  same  course  of  outward  conduct,  yet  these 
two,  measured  by  a  true  moral  standard,  would  stand 
wide  apart  in  worth.  By  these  and  such  like  argu- 
ments Coleridge  opposes  the  Paleyan  and  every  other 
form  of  Utilitarian  ethics.  Instead  of  confounding 
morality  with  prudence,  he  everywhere  bases  morality 
on  religion.  "  The  widest  maxims  of  prudence,"  he 
asserts,  "  are  arms  without  hearts,  when  disjoined  from 
those  feelings  which  have  their  fountain  in  a  living 
principle."  That  principle  lies  in  the  common  ground 
where  morality  and  religion  meet,  and  from  which 
neither  can  be  sundered  without  destruction  to  both. 
The  moral  law,  every  man  feels,  has  a  universality 
and  an  imperativeness  far  transcending  the  widest 
maxims  of  experience ;  and  this  because  it  has  its 
origin  in  Reason,  as  described  above,  in  that  in  each 
man  which  is  representative  of  the  Divine  Will,  and 
connects  him  therewith.  Out  of  Reason,  not  from 
experience,  all  pure  principles  of  morality  spring,  and 
in  it  they  find  their  sanction.  This  is  a  truth  which 
Coleridge  reiterated  in  every  variety  of  form. 

But  while  he  is  thus  strong  in  placing  the  founda- 
tion of  individual  morality  in  Reason,  in  his  sense  of 
that  word,  he  repudiates  those  theories  which  would 
draw  from  the  same  source  the  first  principles  of  polit- 
ical government.  In  opposition  to  these  theories,  he 
held  that  each  form  of  government  is  sufficiently  jus- 
tified, when  it  can  be  shown  that  it  is  suitable  to  the 
circumstances  of  the  particular  nation.  Therefore  no 
one  form  of  government  can  lay  claim  to  be  the  sole 
rightful  one.  Thus  to  prudence  or  expediency  Cole- 
ridge assigns  a  place  in  political  questions  which  he 
denies  to  it  in  moral  ones.  Full  of  power  is  his  whole 
argument  against  Rousseau,  Paine,  and  others  of  that 
day,  who  maintained  the  social  contract  and  the  rights 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  179 

of  man,  and,  laying  the  grounds  of  political  right  ex- 
clusively in  Reason,  held  that  nothing  was  rightful 
in  civil  society  which  could  not  be  deduced  from  the 
primary  laws  of  reason.  "  Who,"  asked  Rousseau, 
"shall  dare  prescribe  a  law  of  moral  action  for  any 
rational  being,  considered  as  a  member  of  a  state, 
which  does  not  flow  immediately  from  that  reason 
which  is  the  fountain  of  all  morality  ? "  Whereto 
Coleridge  replies,  Morality  looks  not  to  the  outward 
act,  but  to  the  internal  maxim  of  actions.  But  politics 
look  solely  to  the  outward  act  The  end  of  good  gov- 
ernment is  so  to  regulate  the  actions  of  particular 
bodies  of  men,  as  shall  be  mo%t  expedient  under  given 
circumstances.  How  then  can  the  same  principle  be 
employed  to  test  the  expediency  of  political  rules  and 
the  purity  of  inward  motives  ?  He  then  goes  on  to 
show  that,  when  Rousseau  asserted  that  every  human 
being  possessed  of  Reason  had  in  him  an  inalienable 
sovereignty,  he  applied  to  actual  man  —  compassed 
about  with  passions,  errors,  vices,  and  infirmities  —  what 
is  true  of  the  abstract  Reason  alone ;  that  all  he  as- 
serted of  "  that  sovereign  will,  to  which  the  right  of 
legislation  belongs,  applies  to  no  human  being,  to  no 
assemblage  of  human  beings,  least  of  all  to  the  mixed 
multitude  that  makes  up  the  people ;  but  entirely  and 
exclusively  to  Reason  itself,  which,  it  is  true,  dwells 
in  every  man  potentially,  but  actually  and  in  perfect 
purity  in  no  man,  and  in  no  body  of  men."  And  this 
reasoning  he  clinches  by  an  instance  and  an  argument, 
often  since  repeated,  though  we  know  not  whether 
Coleridge  was  the  first  to  employ  it.  He  shows  that 
the  constituent  assembly  of  France,  whenever  they 
tried  to  act  out  these  principles  of  pure  Reason,  were 
forced  to  contravene  them.  They  excluded  from  po- 
litical power  children,  though  reasonable  beings,  be- 


180  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

cause  in  them  Reason  is  imperfect ;  women,  because 
they  are  dependent  But  is  there  not  more  of  Reason 
in  many  women,  and  even  in  some  children,  than  in 
men  dependent  for  livelihood  on  the  will  of  others,  the 
very  poor,  the  infirm  of  mind,  the  ignorant,  the  de- 
praved ?  Some  reasonable  beings  must  be  disfran- 
chised. It  comes  then  to  a  question  of  degrees.  And 
how  are  degrees  to  be  determined?  Not  by  pure  rea- 
son, but  by  rules  of  expedience,  founded  on  present 
observation  and  past  experience.  But  the  whole  of 
Coleridge's  reasoning  against  Rousseau  and  Cart- 
wright's  universal  suffrage  is  well  worth  the  attention 
of  those  advanced  thinkers  of  the  present  day,  who 
are  beginning  once  again,  after  a  lapse  of  nearly  a 
century,  to  argue  about  political  rights  on  grounds  of 
abstract  reason.  They  will  there  find,  if  they  care  to 
see  it,  the  whole  question  placed  not  on  temporary  ar- 
guments, but  on  permanent  principles. 

But  keen  as  was  Coleridge's  interest  in  political  and 
moral  subjects,  the  full  bent  of  his  soul,  and  its  deep- 
est meditations,  were  given  to  the  truths  of  the  Chris- 
tian revelation,  as  bearing  most  profoundly  on  the  well- 
being  of  man.  From  none  of  his  works  are  these 
thoughts  absent ;  but  the  fullest  exposition  of  his  relig- 
ious views  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  Aids  to  Reflection," 
his  maturest  work,  and  in  the  third  and  fourth  volumes 
of  the  "  Literary  Remains."  Before,  however,  advert- 
ing to  these  opinions,  it  may  be  well  to  remember,  that, 
much  as  Coleridge  thought  and  reasoned  on  religion,  it 
was  his  firm  conviction,  founded  on  experience,  that  the 
way  to  an  assured  faith,  that  faith  which  gives  life  and 
peace,  is  not  to  be  won  by  dint  of  argument  "  Evidences 
of  Christianity  ! "  he  exclaims,  "  I  am  weary  of  the  word. 
Make  a  man  feel  the  want  of  it ;  rouse  him,  if  you 
can,  to  the  self-knowledge  of  the  need  of  it,  and  you 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  181 

may  safely  trust  it  to  its  own  evidence,  remembering 
always  the  express  declaration  of  Christ  himself :  '  No 
man  cometh  to  me,  unless  the  Father  leadeth  him.'" 
So  it  was  with  himself.  Much  as  he  philosophized, 
philosophy  was  not  his  soul's  haven  ;  not  thence  did 
his  help  come.  It  may  have  cleared  away  outlying 
hindrances,  but  it  was  not  this  that  led  him  up  to  the 
stronghold  of  hope.  Through  the  wound  made  in  his 
own  spirit,  through  the  brokenness  of  a  heart  humbled 
and  made  contrite  by  the  experience  of  his  own  sin  and 
utter  helplessness,  entered  in  the  faith  which  gave  rest, 
the  peace  which  "  settles  where  the  intellect  is  meek." 
Once  his  soul  had  reached  the  cidatel,  his  ever  busy 
eye  and  penetrating  spirit  surveyed  the  nature  of  the 
bulwarks,  and  examined  the  foundations,  as  few  before 
had  done.  And  the  world  has  the  benefit,  whatever  it 
may  be,  of  these  surveys.  But  though  Coleridge  was 
a  religious  philosopher,  he  discriminated  clearly  be- 
tween the  philosophy  and  the  religion.  He  knew  well, 
and  often  insisted,  that  religion  is  life  rather  than 
science,  and  that  there  is  a  danger,  peculiar  to  the  in- 
tellectual man,  of  turning  into  speculation  what  was 
given  to  live  by.  He  knew  that  the  intellect,  busy 
with  ideas  about  God,  may  not  only  fail  to  bring  a 
man  nearer  the  divine  life,  but  may  actually  tend  to 
withdraw  him  from  it.  For  the  intellect  takes  in  but  the 
image  of  the  truth,  and  leaves  the  vital  impression,  the 
full  power  of  it,  unappropriated.  And  hence  it  comes 
that  those  truths  which,  if  felt  by  the  unlearned  at  all, 
go  straight  to  the  heart  and  are  taken  in  by  the  whole 
man,  are  apt,  in  the  case  of  the  philosopher  and  the 
theologian,  to  stop  at  the  vestibule  of  the  understand- 
ing, and  never  to  get  further.  This  is  a  danger  pecul- 
iar to  the  learned,  or  to  those  who  think  themselves 
such.  The  trained  intellect  is  apt  to  eat  out  the  child's 


182  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

heart,  and  yet  the  "  except  ye  become  as  little  chil- 
dren "  stands  unrepealed.  Coleridge  knew  this  well. 
In  his  earliest  interview  with  De  Quincey,  he  said, 
"  that  prayer  with  the  whole  soul  is  the  highest  energy 
of  which  the  human  heart  is  capable,  and  that  the 
great  mass  of  worldly  men,  and  of  learned  men,  are 
absolutely  incapable  of  prayer."  And  orrty  two  years 
before  his  death,  after  a  retrospect  of  his  own  life,  to 
his  nephew,  who  sat  by  his  bedside  one  afternoon,  he 
said,  "  I  have  no  difficulty  in  forgiveness.  .  .  .  Neither 
do  I  find  or  reckon  the  most  solemn  faith  in  God  as  a 
real  object  the  most  arduous  act  of  reason  and  will. 
O  no  !  it  is  to  pray,  to  pray  as  God  would  have  us : 
that  is  what  at  times  makes  me  turn  cold  to  my  soul. 
Believe  me,  to  pray  with  all  your  heart  and  strength, 
with  the  reason  and  the  will,  to  believe  vividly  that 
God  will  listen  to  your  voice  through  Christ,  and  ver- 
ily do  the  thing  He  pleaseth  thereupon  —  this  is  the 
last,  the  greatest  achievement  of  a  Christian's  warfare 
on  earth."  "And  then  he  burst  into  tears,  and 
begged  me  to  pray  for  him." 

It  has  been  said  that  the  great  object  of  his  theo- 
logical speculations  was  to  bring  into  harmony  religion 
and  philosophy.  This  assertion  would  mislead  if  it 
were  meant  to  imply  that  he  regarded  these  as  two  co- 
ordinate powers,  which  could  be  welded  together  into 
one  reasoned  system.  It  would  perhaps  be  more  true 
to  say  that  his  endeavor  was,  in  his  own  words,  to  re- 
move the  doubts  and  difficulties  that  cannot  but  arise 
whenever  the  understanding,  the  mind  of  the  flesh,  is 
made  the  measure  of  spiritual  things.  He  labored  to 
remove  religion  from  a  merely  mechanical  or  intellect- 
ual, and  to  place  it  on  a  moral  and  spiritual  foundation. 
His  real  aim  was,  notwithstanding  that  his  love  for 
scholastic  distinctions  might  seem  to  imply  the  con- 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  183 

trary,  to  simplify  men's  thoughts  on  these  things,  to 
show  that  spiritual  truth  is,  like  the  light,  self-evidenc- 
ing, that  it  is  preconformed  to  man's  higher  nature,  as 
man's  nature  is  preconformed  to  it. 

As  he  had  to  contend  against  Lockeian  metaphysics 
and  Paleyan  ethics,  so  he  had  to  do  strenuous  battle 
against  a  theology  mainly  mechanical.  He  awoke 
upon  an  age  when  the  belief  in  God  was  enforced  in 
the  schools  as  the  conclusion  of  a  lengthened  argu- 
ment ;  when  revelation  was  proved  exclusively  by  mir- 
acles, with  little  regard  to  its  intrinsic  evidence ;  and 
when  both  natural  and  revealed  truths  were  superin- 
duced from  without,  as  extraneous,  extra-moral  beliefs, 
rather  than  taught  as  living  faiths  evidenced  from 
within.  In  opposition  to  this  kind  of  teaching,  which 
had  so  long  reigned,  Coleridge  taught  that  the  founda- 
tion truth  of  all  religion,  faith  hi  the  existence  of  God, 
was  incapable  of  intellectual  demonstration  —  that  as 
all  religion,  so  this  corner-stone  of  religion,  must  have 
a  moral  origin.  To  him  that  belief  was  inherent  in 
the  soul,  as  Reason  is  inherent,  indeed  a  part  of  Rea- 
son, in  the  sense  he  gave  to  that  word,  as  moral  in  its 
nature,  and  the  fountain  of  moral  truth.  His  creed  on 
this  subject  he  thus  expresses:  — 

"  Because  I  possess  Reason,  or  a  law  of  right  and 
wrong,  which,  uniting  with  the  sense  of  moral  respon- 
sibility, constitutes  my  conscience,  hence  it  is  my  abso- 
lute duty  to  believe,  and  I  do  believe,  that  there  is  a 
God,  that  is,  a  Being  in  whom  supreme  Reason  and  a 
most  holy  will  are  one  with  infinite  power ;  and  that 
all  holy  will  is  coincident  with  the  will  of  God,  and 
therefore  secure  in  its  ultimate  consequences  by  his 
omnipotence.  The  wonderful  works  of  God  hi  the 
sensible  world  are  a  perpetual  discourse,  reminding  me 
of  his  existence,  and  a  shadowing  out  to  me  his  per- 


184  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

factions.  But  as  all  language  presupposes,  in  the  in- 
telligent hearer  or  reader,  those  primary  notions  which 
it  symbolizes,  ....  even  so,  I  believe  that  the  notion 
of  God  is  essential  to  the  human  mind  ;  that  it  is  called 
forth  into  distinct  consciousness  principally  by  the  con- 
science, and  auxiliarily  by  the  manifest  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends  in  the  outward  creation.  It  is  therefore 
evident  to  my  Reason,  that  the  existence  of  God  is  ab- 
solutely and  necessarily  insusceptible  of  a  scientific 
demonstration,  and  that  Scripture  so  represents  it. 
For  it  commands  us  to  believe  in  one  God.  Now  all 
commandment  necessarily  relates  to  the  will ;  whereas 
all  scientific  demonstration  is  independent  of  the  will, 
and  is  demonstrative  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  compulsory 
on  the  mind,  volentem,  nolentem." 

Thus  we  see  that  with  regard  to  the  first  truth  of  all 
religion,  Coleridge  places  its  evidence  in  conscience  and 
the  intuitive  reason.  Carrying  the  same  manner  of 
thinking  into  revealed  religion,  he  gave  to  its  inherent 
substance  the  foremost  place  as  evidence,  while  to 
historical  proofs  and  arguments  from  miracles  he  as- 
signed the  same  subordinate  place  as,  in  reference  to 
the  existence  of  God,  he  assigned  to  arguments  from 
design. 

His  view  upon  this  subject  also  is  better  given  in  his 
own  language.  It  could  hardly  be  expressed  in  fewer, 
and  certainly  not  in  better  words.  The  main  evidence, 
he  thinks,  are  "  the  doctrines  of  Christainity,  and  the 
correspondence  of  human  nature  to  these  doctrines, 
illustrated,  first,  historically,  as  the  production  of  a  new 
world,  and  the  dependence  of  the  fate  of  the  planet 
upon  it;  second,  individually,  from  its  appeal  to  an 
ascertained  fact,  the  truth  of  which  every  man  possess- 
ing Reason  has  an  equal  power  of  ascertaining  within 
himself;  namely,  a  will,  which  has  more  or  less  lost  its 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  185 

own  freedom,  though  not  the  consciousness  that  it 
ought  to  be  and  may  become  free  ;  the  conviction  that 
this  cannot  be  achieved  without  the  operation  of  a  prin- 
ciple co-natural  with  itself;  the  experience  in  his  own 
nature  of  the  truth  of  the  process  described  by  Scrip- 
ture, as  far  as  he  can  place  himself  within  the  process, 
aided  by  the  confident  assurances  of  others  as  to  the 
effects  experienced  by  them,  and  which  he  is  striving  to 
arrive  at.  All  these  form  a  practical  Christian.  To 
such  a  man  one  main  test  of  the  truth  is  his  faith  in  its 
accompaniment  by  a  growing  insight  into  the  moral 
beauty  and  necessity  of  the  process  which  it  comprises, 
and  the  dependence  of  that  process  on  the  causes  as- 
serted. Believe,  and  if  thy  belief  be  right,  that  insight 
which  changes  faith  into  knowledge,  will  be  the  reward 
of  that  belief." 

Subordinate  to  the  internal  evidence  in  Coleridge's 
view  —  buttresses,  but  not  corner-stones  —  are  the 
facts  of  the  existence  and  of  the  history  of  Christianity, 
and  also  of  the  miracles  which  accompanied  its  first 
appearance.  These  are  necessary  results,  rather  than 
primary  proofs  of  revelation.  "  As  the  result  of  the 
above  convictions,  he  will  not  scruple  to  receive  the 
particular  miracles  recorded,  inasmuch  as  it  is  mirac- 
ulous that  an  incarnate  God  should  not  work  what 
must  to  mere  men  appear  as  miracles ;  inasmuch  as  it 
is  strictly  accordant  with  the  ends  and  benevolent 
nature  of  such  a  Being  to  commence  the  elevation  of 
man  above  his  mere  senses  by  enforcing  attention  first, 
through  an  appeal  to  those  senses."  Thus,  according 
to  him,  miracles  are  not  the  adequate  and  ultimate 
proof  of  religion,  not  the  keystone  of  the  arch,  but 
rather  "  compacting  stones  in  it,  which  give  while  they 
receive  strength." 

It  thus  appears  that  Coleridge's  theology  was  more 


186  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

or  less  a  recoil  from  one  in  which  miracles  had  been 
pushed  into  undue,  almost  exclusive,  prominence,  one 
in  which  the  proof  of  religion  was  derived  mainly  from 
the  outward  senses.  In  accordance  with  his  pre- 
eminently subjective  mode  of  thought,  he  was  convinced 
that  to  subjugate  the  senses  to  faith,  the  passive  belief 
to  the  moral  and  responsible  belief,  was  one  main  end 
of  all  religion.  Whether  Coleridge  struck  the  balance 
rightly  between  outward  and  inward  evidence,  whether 
he  gave  to  miracles  that  place  which  is  their  due ; 
whether,  in  his  zeal  for  the  inward  truths,  he  estimated 
as  they  deserve  the  miraculous  facts  which,  whatever 
they  may  be  to  some  over-subtilized  intellects,  have 
been,  and  always  must  be,  to  the  great  mass  of  men, 
the  main  objective  basis  on  which  the  spiritual  truths 
repose,  —  these  are  questions  on  which  I  shall  not  now 
enter.  My  aim  here  is  not  so  much  to  criticise,  as  to 
set  forth,  as  fairly  as  may  be,  what  his  views  really 
were. 

We  have  seen  then  that  Coleridge  held  the  adapta- 
tion of  Christianity  to  man's  need,  and  to  his  whole 
moral  nature,  to  be  the  strongest  evidence  of  its  truth. 
And  this  naturally  suggests  the  question,  How  far  did 
he  regard  man's  moral  convictions  to  be  the  test  of 
revelation  as  a  whole,  or  of  any  particular  doctrine  of 
revelation  ?  Did  he  wish  to  square  down  the  truths 
of  revelation  to  the  findings  of  human  conscience  ?  To 
answer  this  question  js  the  more  necessary,  because 
Mr.  Mill,  in  the  few  remarks  on  Coleridge's  religious 
opinions  with  which  he  closes  his  essay,  has  asserted 
that  he  "  goes  as  far  as  the  Unitarians  in  making  man's 
reason  and  moral  feelings  a  test  of  revelation  ;  but 
differs  toto  coelo  from  them  in  their  rejection  of  its  mys- 
teries, which  he  regards  as  the  highest  philosophical 
truths."  It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  Coleridge,  who 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  187 

certainly  ought  to  have  known  both  his  own  views  and 
those  of  the  Unitarians,  should  have  so  far  deluded 
himself  as  to  protest  against  them  unweariedly  for  this 
very  fault,  that  they  made  man  the  measure  of  all 
things,  while  in  this  matter  he  himself  was  substantially 
at  one  with  them.  The  truth  is,  that  those  who  speak 
most  strongly  about  Reason  being  the  measure  of  faith, 
mean  by  the  word  Reason  much  the  same  as  Coleridge 
meant  by  Understanding  —  the  faculty  of  definite  con- 
ceptions, the  power  of  clearly  comprehending  truths. 
And  in  their  mouths  the  proposition  means  that  nothing 
is  to  be  believed  in  religion,  or  in  anything  else,  which 
man's  understanding  cannot  fully  grasp,  clearly  con- 
ceive, definitely  express,  satisfactorily  explain.  Now 
Coleridge  used  the  term  Reason  in  a  sense  different 
from  this,  nay  opposed  to  it.  He  held,  whether  rightly 
or  no  I  do  not  now  inquire,  but  he  held  that  there  is  a 
power  in  man  to  apprehend  spiritual  truths  which  he 
cannot  comprehend,  —  something  that  brings  him  into 
close  relation,  I  had  almost  said  contact,  with  super- 
sensible reality,  —  and  to  this  power  he  gave  the  name 
of  Reason.  And  the  intimations  of  moral  and  spiritual 
things,  which  he  believed  that  he  received  through  this 
power,  he  accepted  readily,  though  he  could  not  under- 
stand nor  explain  them.  Even  with  regard  to  the 
first  truth  of  religion,  the  existence,  personality,  and 
moral  nature  of  God,  he  held  that  this  is  to  be  received 
on  moral  grounds,  and  regarded  as  a  settled  truth  "  not 
by  the  removal  of  all  difficulties,  or  by  any  such  in- 
crease of  insight  as  enables  a  man  to  meet  all  skeptical 
objections  with  a  full  and  precise  answer ;  but  because 
he  has  convinced  himself  that  it  is  folly  as  well  as  pre- 
sumption to  expect  it ;  and  because  the  doubts  and 
difficulties  disappear  at  the  beam  when  tried  against  the 
weight  of  the  reasons  in  the  other  scale."  Again,  of 


188  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

the  fall  of  man,  he  says  that  it  is  a  mystery  too  pro- 
found for  human  insight ;  and  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  that  it  is  an  absolute  truth  transcending  our 
human  means  of  understanding  or  demonstrating  it. 
These,  and  numerous  other  such  like  sayings,  might  be 
adduced,  not  to  speak  of  the  whole  scope  of  his  philos- 
ophy, to  show  that  it  was  no  obstacle  to  his  belief  in 
the  truth,  that  it  transcended  his  comprehension.  Nay, 
more,  so  far  was  he  from  desiring  to  bring  down  all 
religious  truths  to  the  level  of  human  comprehension, 
that  he  everywhere  enforced  it  as  a  thing  antecedently 
to  be  expected,  that  the  fundamental  truths  should  be 
mysteries,  and  declared  that  he  would  have  found  it 
hard  to  believe  them  if  they  had  not  been  so. 

What  then  did  he  mean  when  he  maintained,  as 
he  certainly  did,  that  "  in  no  case  can  true  Reason 
and  a  right  faith  oppose  each  other  ?  "  We  have  seen 
that  Reason  with  Coleridge  was  the  link  by  which  man 
is  joined  on  to  a  higher  order,  the  source  whence  he 
draws  hi  all  of  moral  truth  and  of  religious  sentiment 
which  he  possesses.  It  was  the  harmony  of  revelation 
with  this  faculty  of  apprehending  universal  spiritual 
truths  which  was  to  him  the  main  ground  for  originally 
believing  in  revelation,  and  therefore  he  held  that  no 
particular  doctrine  of  revelation  can  contradict  the  find- 
ings of  that  faculty  on  the  evidence  of  which  revela- 
tion as  a  whole  is  originally  received.  In  other  words, 
no  view  of  God's  nature  and  of  his  dealings  with  men, 
no  interpretation  of  any  doctrine,  or  of  any  text  of 
Scripture,  can  be  true,  which  contradicts  the  clear 
intimations  of  enlightened  conscience.  And  the  sub- 
stance of  revelation  and  the  dictates  of  conscience  so 
answer  to  each  other;  that  the  religious  student,  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  may  expect  to  gain 
an  ever-growing  insight  into  their  harmony.  Opposed 


SAMUEL    TAYLO&  COLERIDGE.  189 

to  this  doctrine  of  Coleridge,  on  the  one  hand,  is  the 
teaching  of  those  who,  believing  in  revelation,  deny 
to  man  any  power  of  apprehending  spiritual  truths, 
and  hold  that  the  first  truths  of  religion  must  be  re- 
ceived simply  as  authoritative  data  from  without. 
Equally  opposed,  on  the  other  hand,  are  the  views  of 
those  who,  though  admitting  in  some  sense  the  truth 
of  revelation,  yet  make  man's  power  of  understanding 
the  entire  measure  of  all  that  is  to  be  received  as 
revealed.  The  creed  which  is  bounded  either  theoret- 
ically or  practically  within  this  latter  limit  must  needs 
be  a  scanty  one. 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that,  both  in  the  things  of 
natural  and  revealed  religion,  the  test  that  lies  in  man's 
moral  judgment  seems  more  a  negative  than  a  positive 
one.  We  are  not  to  believe  about  God  anything 
which  positively  contradicts  our  first  notions  of  right- 
eousness and  goodness,  for  to  do  so  would  be  to  cut 
away  the  original  moral  ground  of  our  belief  in  his 
existence  and  character.  Thus  far  our  moral  judg- 
ments carry  us,  but  not  much  further.  No  rational 
man  who  believes  in  God  at  all  will  try  to  square  all 
the  facts  that  meet  him  in  the  natural  and  the  moral 
world  to  his  sense  of  right  and  wrong.  Life  is  full  of 
inscrutable  facts  which  cannot  be  made  by  us  to  fit  into 
any  moral  standard  of  ours.  All  that  the  moral  judg- 
ment has  a  right  to  say  with  regard  to  them  is  to 
refuse  to  believe  any  proposed  interpretation  of  them 
which  contradicts  the  plain  laws  of  right  and  wrong, 
any  interpretation  which  makes  God  unrighteous  on 
account  of  such  facts,  and  to  wait  patiently  in  full  faith 
that  a  time  will  come  when  we  shall  see  these  now 
inexplicable  facts  to  have  been  fully  consistent  with 
the  most  perfect  righteousness.  And  the  same  use 
which  we  make  of  our  moral  judgment  in  regard  to 


190  SAKUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

the  facts  that  meet  us  in  life,  we  are  bound  to  make 
of  it  with  regard  to  the  doctrines  of  revelation.  We 
may  not  be  able  now  to  see  moral  light  through  all  of 
these,  but  we  are  to  refuse  any  interpretation  of  them 
which  does  violence  to  the  moral  judgment.  In  both 
cases,  however,  we  have  reason  to  expect  that,  to  those 
who  honestly  and  humbly  use  the  light  they  have, 
more  light  will  be  given,  —  a  growing  insight  into,  or 
at  least  a  trustful  acquiescence  in,  facts  which  at  first 
were  too  dark  and  perplexing.  There  are  in  this 
region  two  extremes,  equally  to  be  shunned.  One  is 
theirs,  who  in  matters  of  religion  begin  by  discredit- 
ing the  natural  light, — by  putting  out  the  eye  of 
conscience,  —  that  they  may  the  more  magnify  the 
heavenly  light  of  revelation,  or  rather  their  own  inter- 
pretations thereof.  The  other  is  seen  in  those  who, 
enthroning  on  the  judgment-seat  the  first  off-hand 
findings  of  their  own,  and  that  perhaps  no  very  en- 
lightened conscience,  proceed  to  arraign  before  this 
bar  the  statements  of  Scripture,  and  to  reject  all  which 
does  not  seem  to  square  with  the  verdicts  of  the  self- 
erected  tribunal.  There  is  a  more  excellent  way  than 
either,  a  way  not  definable  perhaps  by  criticism,  but  to 
be  found  by  spiritual  wisdom.  There  are  those  who, 
loath  to  do  violence  to  the  teachings  either  of  Scripture 
or  of  conscience,  but  patiently  and  reverently  compar- 
ing them  together,  find  that  the  more  deeply  they  are 
pondered,  the  more  they  do,  on  the  whole,  reflect  light 
one  on  the  other.  To  such  the  words  of  Scripture, 
interpreted  by  the  experience  of  life,  reveal  things 
about  their  own  nature  which  once  seemed  incredible. 
And  the  more  they  know  of  themselves  and  their  own 
needs,  the  more  the  words  of  Scripture  seem  to  enlarge 
their  meaning  to  meet  these.  But  as  to  the  large 
outlying  region  of  the  inexplicable  that  will  still  remain 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  191 

in  the  world,  in  man,  and  in  Holy  Writ,  they  can  leave 
all  this,  in  full  confidence  that  when  the  solution,  soon 
or  late,  shall  come,  it  will  be  seen  to  be  in  profound 
harmony  with  our  highest  sense  of  righteousness,  and 
with  that  word  which  declares  that  "  God  is  light,  and 
in  him  is  no  darkness-  at  all."  Such,  though  not  ex- 
pressed in  Coleridge's  words,  I  believe  to  be  the  spirit 
of  his  teaching. 

What  then  is  to  be  said  of  those  passages  in  his 
works  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  mysteries  of  faith  and 
the  highest  truths  of  philosophy  as  coincident ;  in  which 
he  says  that  he  received  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  not 
merely  on  authority,  but  because  of  its  to  him  exceed- 
ing reasonableness ;  in  which  he  speaks  as  if  he  had  an 
intellectual  insight  into  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and 
draws  out  formulas  of  it  in  strange  words  hard  to  un- 
derstand ?  Whatever  we  may  think  of  these  sayings 
and  formulas,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  Coleridge 
never  pretended  that  he  could  have  discovered  the 
truths  apart  from  revelation.  If  after  practically  ac- 
cepting these  truths,  and  finding  in  them  the  spiritual 
supports  of  his  soul,  he  employed  his  powers  of  thought 
upon  them,  and  drew  them  out  into  intellectual  form- 
ulas more  satisfactory  to  himself  than  they  have  for  the 
most  part  proved  to  others,  yet  these  philosophizings, 
made  for  the  purpose  of  speculative  insight,  he  neither 
represented  as  the  grounds  of  his  dwn  faith,  never  ob- 
truded on  others  as  necessary  for  theirs.  He  ever  kept 
steadily  before  him  the  difference  between  an  intellect- 
ual belief  and  a  practical  faith,  and  asserted  that  it  was 
solely  in  consequence  of  the  historical  fact  of  redemp- 
tion that  the  Trinity  becomes  a  doctrine,  the  belief  in 
which  as  real  is  commanded  by  our  conscience. 

In  the  "  Aids  to  Reflection,"  the  earlier  half  of  the 
work  is  employed  in  clearing  away  preliminary  hin- 


192  SAMUEL  TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

drances  ;  the  latter  part  deals  mainly  with  moral  diffi- 
culties that  are  apt  to  beset  the  belief  in  the  Original 
Sin  and  in  the  Atonement. 

With  regard  to  the  former  doctrine,  he  shows  that 
the  belief  of  the  existence  of  evil,  as  a  fact,  in  man  and 
in  the  world,  is  not  peculiar  to  Christianity,  but  is  com- 
mon to  it  with  every  religion  and  every  philosophy 
that  has  believed  in  a  personal  God  ;  in  fact,  to  all  sys- 
tems but  Pantheism  and  Atheism.  The  fact  then 
needs  no  proof,  but  the  meaning  of  the  fact  does.  As 
to  this,  Coleridge  rejected  that  interpretation  of  origi- 
nal sin,  which  makes  "  original "  mean  "  hereditary,"  or 
inherited  like  our  bodily  constitution  from  our  fore- 
fathers. Such,  he  held,  might  be  disease  or  calamity, 
but  could  not  be  sin,  the  meaning  of  which  is,  the 
choice  of  evil  by  a  will  free  to  choose  between  good 
and  evil.  This  fact  of  a  law  in  man's  nature  which 
opposes  the  law  of  God,  is  not  only  a  fact,  but  a  mys- 
tery, of  which  no  other  solution  than  the  statement  of 
the  fact  is  possible.  For  consider :  Sin,  to  be  sin,  is 
evil  originating  in,  not  outside  of,  the  will.  And  what 
is  the  essence  of  the  will  ?  It  is  a  self-determining 
power,  having  the  original  ground  of  its  own  determi- 
nation in  itself;  and  if  subject  to  any  cause  from  with- 
out, such  cause  must  have  acquired  this  power  of  deter- 
mining the  will,  by  a  previous  determination  of  the  will 
itself.  This  is  the  very  essence  of  a  will.  And  herein 
it  is  contradistinguished  from  nature,  whose  essence  it 
is  to  be  unable  to  originate  anything,  but  to  be  bound 
in  the  mechanism  of  cause  and  effect.  If  the  will  has 
by  its  own  act  subjected  itself  to  nature,  has  received 
into  itself  from  nature  an  alien  influence  which  has  cur- 
tailed its  freedom,  in  so  far  as  it  has  done  this,  it  has 
corrupted  itself.  This  is  original  sin,  or  sin  originating 
in  the  only  region  in  which  it  can  originate  —  the 
Will.  This  is  a  fall  of  man. 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  193 

You  ask,  When  did  this  fall  take  place?  Has  the 
will  of  each  man  chosen  evil  for  itself;  and,  if  so, 
when  ?  To  this  Coleridge  would  reply  that  each  indi- 
vidual will  has  so  chosen  ;  but  as  to  the  when,  the  will 
belongs  to  a  region  of  being,  is  part  of  an  order  of 
things  in  which  time  and  space  have  no  meaning ;  that 
"the  subject  stands  in  no  relation. to  time,  can  neither 
be  called  in  time  or  out  of  time  ;  but  that  all  relations 
of  time  are  as  alien  and  heterogeneous  in  this  question 
as  north  or  south,  round  or  square,  thick  or  thin,  are  in 
the  affections." 

Again  you  ask,  With  whom  did  sin  originate  ?  And 
Coleridge  replies,  The  grounds  of  will  on  which  it  is 
true  of  any  one  man  are  equally  true  in  the  case  of  all 
men.  The  fact  is  asserted  of  the  individual,  not  be- 
cause he  has  done  this  or  that  particular  evil  act,  but 
simply  because  he  is  man.  It  is  impossible  for  the  in- 
dividual to  say  that  it  commenced  in  this  or  that  act. 
at  this  or  that  time.  As  he  cannot  trace  it  back  to 
any  particular  moment  of  his  life,  neither  can  he  state 
any  moment  at  which  it  did  not  exist.  As  to  this  fact, 
then,  what  is  true  of  any  one  man  is  true  of  all  men. 
For,  "in  respect  of  original  sin,  each  man  is  the  repre- 
sentative of  all  men." 

Such,  nearly  in  his  own  words,  was  the  way  in 
which  Coleridge  sought,  while  fully  acknowledging  this 
fact,  to  construe  it  to  himself,  so  as  to  get  rid  of  those 
theories  which  make  it  an  infliction  from  without,  a 
calamity,  a  hereditary  disease ;  for  which,  however 
much  sorrow  there  might  be,  there  could  be  no  respon- 
sibility, and  therefore  no  sense  of  guilt.  And  he 
sought  to  show  that  it  is  an  evil  self-originated  in  the 
will ;  a  fact  mysterious,  not  to  be  explained,  but  to  be 
felt  by  each  man  in  his  conscience  as  his  own  deed. 
Therefore,  in  the  confession  of  his  faith,  he  said :  — 
13 


194  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

"  I  believe  (and  hold  it  a  fundamental  article  of 
Christianity)  that  I  am  a  fallen  creature ;  that  I  am 
myself  capable  of  moral  evil,  but  not  of  myself  capable 
of  moral  good ;  and  that  an  evil  ground  existed  in  my 
will  previously  to  any  given  act,  or  assignable  moment 
of  time,  in  my  own  consciousness.  I  am  born  a  child 
of  wrath.  This  fearful  mystery  I  pretend  not  to  under- 
stand. I  cannot  even  conceive  the  possibility  of  it,  but 
I  know  that  it  is  so.  My  conscience,  the  sole  fountain 
of  certainty,  commands  me  to  believe  it,  and  would  it- 
self be  a  contradiction  were  it  not  so  ;  and  what  is  real 
must  be  possible." 

And  the  sequel  of  the  same  confession  thus  goes 
on:  — 

"I  receive,  with  full  and  grateful  faith,  the  assur- 
ance of  revelation  that  the  Word,  which  is  from  eternity 
with  God,  and  is  God,  assumed  our  human  nature,  in 
order  to  redeem  me  and  all  mankind  from  this  our  con- 
nate corruption.  My  reason  convinces  me  that  no 

other  mode  of  redemption  is  possible I  believe 

that  this  assumption  of  humanity  by  the  Son  of  God 
was  revealed  and  realized  to  us  by  the  Word  made 
flesh,  and  manifested  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  his 
miraculous  birth,  his  agony,  his  crucifixion,  death,  resur- 
rection, and  ascension,  were  all  both  symbols  of  our  re- 
demption, and  necessary  parts  of  the  awful  process." 

Such  was  his  belief  in  1816,  marking  how  great  a 
mental  revolution  he  must  have  gone  through  since  the 
days  when  he  was  a  Unitarian  preacher.  The  steps 
of  that  change  he  has  himself  but  partially  recorded. 
But  the  abandonment  of  the  Hartleian  for  a  more  ideal 
philosophy,  the  blight  that  fell  on  his  manhood,  his  suf- 
fering, and  sense  of  inner  misery,  then  the  closer  study 
of  the  Bible  in  the  light  of  his  own  need,  and  growing 
intercourse  with  the  works  of  the  elder  divines,  —  all 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  195 

these  were  steps  at  least  in  the  transition.  But  what- 
ever may  have  wrought  this  change,  no  one  who  knows 
anything  of  Coleridge  can  doubt  that  in  this,  as  in 
opinions  of  lesser  import,  he  was  influenced  only  by 
the  sincerest  desire  for  truth.  Great  as  may  have 
been  his  moral  defects  —  far  as  he  may  have  fallen,  in 
some  of  the  homeliest  duties,  even  below  common  men, 
this  at  least  must  be  conceded  to  him,  that  he  desired 
the  truth,  hungered  and  thirsted  for  it,  pursued  it  with 
a  life-long  earnestness,  rare  even  among  the  best  men. 
In  this  search  for  truth,  and  in  his  declaration  of  it 
when  found,  self-interest,  party  feeling,  friendship,  had 
no  place  with  him.  He  had  come  to  believe  in  some 
sort  in  a  Trinity  in  the  Godhead,  and  admitted  more 
or  less  the  personality  of  the  Logos,  for  some  time  be- 
fore he  returned  fully  to  the  Catholic  faith.  The  be- 
lief in  the  Incarnation  and  Redemption  by  the  Cross,  as 
historical  facts,  were  the  stumbling-blocks  which  last 
disappeared.  Therefore  his  final  conviction  on  this 
subject,  as  recorded  in  the  "  Aids  to  Reflection,"  is  the 
more  worthy  of  regard,  as  being  the  last  step  taken  by 
one  who  had  long  resisted,  and  only  after  profound  re- 
flection submitted  himself  to  this  faith.  He  there  lays 
down,  that  as  sin  is  the  ground  or  occasion  of  Chris- 
tianity, so  Redemption  is  its  superstructure ;  that  Re- 
demption and  Christianity  are  equivalent  terms.  From 
this  he  does  not  attempt  to  remove  the  awful  mystery, 
but  only  to  clear  away  any  objections  which  may 
spring  out  of  the  moral  instincts  of  man  against  the 
common  interpretation  of  the  doctrine.  These  are  the 
only  difficulties  that  deserve  an  answer. 

In  the  Redemption,  the  agent  is  the  Eternal  Word 
made  flesh,  standing  in  the  place  of  man  to  God,  and  of 
God  to  man,  fulfilling  all  righteousness,  suffering,  dying, 
and  so  dying  as  to  conquer  death  itself,  and  for  all  who 


196  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

shall  receive  Him.  The  redemptive  or  atoning  act 
of  this  divine  Agent  has  two  sides  —  one  that  looks 
Godward,  the  other  that  looks  manward.  The  side 
it  turns  Godward  —  that  is,  the  essence  of  the  aton- 
ing act,  the  cause  of  man's  redemption  —  is  "a  spir- 
itual and  transcendent  mystery  which  passeth  all 
understanding ; "  its  nature,  mode,  and  possibility, 
transcend  man's  comprehension.  But  the  side  that  it 
turns  manward —  that  is,  the  effect  upon  the  re- 
deemed —  is  most  simply,  and  without  metaphor,  de- 
scribed, as  far  as  it  is  comprehensible  by  man,  in  St. 
John's  words,  as  the  being  born  anew  ;  as  at  first  we 
were  born  in  the  flesh  to  the  world,  so  now  born  hi  the 
Spirit  of  Christ.  Christ  was  made  a  quickening,  that 
is  a  life-making  Spirit.  This,  Coleridge  believed  to  be 
the  nearest,  most  immediate  effect  on  man  of  the  trans- 
cendent redemptive  act.  Closely  connected  with  this 
first,  most  immediate  effect,  are  other  consequences, 
which  St.  Paul  has  described  by  four  principal  meta- 
phors. These  consequences,  in  reference  to  the  sinner, 
are  either  the  taking  away  of  guilt,  as  by  a  great  sin- 
offering,  just  as  to  the  transgressor  of  the  Mosaic  law 
his  civil  stain  was  cleared  away  by  the  ceremonial 
offering  of  the  priest ;  or  the  reconciliation  of  the  sin- 
ner to  God,  as  the  prodigal  son  is  reconciled  to  the 
parent  whom  he  has  injured;  or  the  satisfying  of  a 
debt  by  the  payment  of  the  sum  owed  to  the  creditor ; 
or  the  ransoming  of  a  slave,  the  bringing  him  back 
from  slavery,  by  payment  of  a  price  for  him.  These 
four  figures  describe,  each  in  a  different  way,  the  result 
of  the  great  redemptive  act  on  sinful  man.  This  is 
their  true  meaning.  They  are  figures  intended  to 
bring  home  to  man  in  a  practical  way  the  nature  and 
the  greatness  of  the  benefit.  Popularly  they  are 
transferred  back  to  the  mysterious  cause,  but  they  can 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  197 

not  be  taken  as  if  they  really  and  adequately  explained 
the  nature  of  that  cause,  without  leading  to  confusions. 
Debt,  satisfaction,  payment  in  full,  are  not  terms  by 
which  the  essential  nature  of  the  atoning  act,  and  its 
necessity,  can  be  literally  and  adequately  expressed. 
If,  forgetting  this,  we  take  these  expressions  literally, 
and  argue  from  them,  as  if  they  gave  real  intellectual 
insight  into  the  nature  and  mode  of  that  greatest  of  all 
mysteries,  we  are  straightway  landed  in  moral  contra- 
dictions. The  nature  of  the  redemptive  act,  as  it  is  in 
itself,  is  not  to  be  compassed  nor  uttered  by  the  lan- 
guage of  the  human  understanding.  Such,  as  nearly  as 
I  can  give  it,  was  Coleridge's  thought  upon  this  great 
mystery.  Whatever  may  be  the  value  of  this  view, 
one  thing  is  to  be  observed,  that  Coleridge  did  not  pro- 
pound it  with  any  hope  of  explaining  a  subject  which 
he  believed  to  be  beyond  man's  power  of  explanation, 
but  from  the  earnest  desire  to  clear  away  moral  hin- 
drances to  its  full  acceptance.  Such  hindrances  he  be- 
lieved that  human  theologies,  in  their  attempts  to  sys- 
temize  this  and  other  doctrines  of  Scripture,  were  from 
time  to  time  piling  up.  It  was  his  endeavor,  whether 
successful  or  not,  in  what  he  wrote  on  this  and  on 
every  other  religious  subject,  to  clear  away  these  hin- 
drances, and  to  place  the  truth  in  a  light  which  shall 
commend  itself  to  every  man's  conscience,  a  light  which 
shall  be  consistent  with  such  fundamental  Scriptures  as 
these,  "  I,  the  Lord,  speak  righteousness,  I  declare 
things  that  are  right ; "  "  God  is  light,  and  in  Him  is  no 
darkness  at  all."  Since  his  day,  men's  thoughts  have 
been  exercised  on  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  as  per- 
haps they  never  were  before.  There  is  one  view,  of 
late  years  advocated  in  various  forms,  which  regards 
the  atonement  as  merely  such  a  declaration  or  exhibi- 
tion of  God's  love  to  sinners,  as  by  the  pure  power  of 


198  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

its  clemency  awakens  them  to  repentance,  and  takes 
away  the  estrangement  of  their  hearts.  This  is  no 
doubt  part  of  the  truth,  but  it  falls  far  short  of  satisfy- 
ing either  man's  deeper  moral  instincts,  or  those  many 
passages  of  Scripture  which  declare  that  forgiveness  of 
sins  is  one  great  need  of  the  soul,  and  that  Christ's 
death  is  the  means  through  which  forgiveness  is  made 
possible.  Such  interpretations,  if  taken  for  the  whole, 
leave  out  of  account  the  "more  behind,"  which  Scrip- 
ture bears  witness  to,  and  man's  conscience  needs. 
They  take  no  account  of  that  bearing  which  Christ's 
death  has  toward  God,  and  which  Coleridge,  while  he 
held  it  to  be  incomprehensible,  fully  believed  to  exist, 
On  this  great  question,  the  nature  of  the  atoning  act 
in  its  relation  to  God,  some  meditations  have  since 
Coleridge's  time  been  given  to  the  world,  which,  while 
penetrating  deeper,  seem  yet  in  harmony  with  that 
which  Coleridge  taught.  I  allude  to  Mr.  Campbell's  pro- 
found work,  "  The  Nature  of  the  Atonement,"  in  which, 
though  all  the  difficulties  are  not  cleared  up,  the  author 
goes  further  toward  satisfying  at  once  many  of  the  ex- 
pressions of  Scripture  and  the  requirements  of  conscience 
than  any  other  theological  work  I  know  of  has  done. 

Such  are  a  few  samples  of  Coleridge's  theological 
method  and  manner  of  thinking.  In  the  wish  to  set 
them  forth  in  something  of  a  systematic  order,  I  have 
done  but  scanty  justice  to  the  fullness  and  the  practical 
fervor  which  pervade  the  "  Aids  to  Reflection,"  and  I 
have  given  no  notion  at  all  of  the  prodigality  of 
thought  with  which  his  other  works  run  over.  It  were 
vain  to  hope  that  any  words  could  give  an  impression 
of  that  marvellous  range  of  vision,  that  richness,  that 
swing  of  thought,  that  lightning  of  genius.  Besides 
nis  works  already  noticed,  his  "  Lay  Sermons,"  with 
their  Appendices,  and  his  "  Literary  Remains,"  are  a 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  199 

very  quarry  of  thought,  from  which  young  and  reflect- 
ing readers  may  dig  wealth  of  unexhausted  ore.  But 
over  these  I  cannot  now  linger. 

Neither  can  I  do  more  than  merely  allude  to  those 
remarkable  letters,  published  after  his  death,  in  which 
Coleridge  approaches  the  great  question  of  the  inspira- 
tion of  Scripture.  Arnold  recognized  their  appearance 
as  marking  an  era  in  theology  the  most  important  that 
had  occurred  since  the  Reformation  ;  and  the  interval 
that  has  since  passed  has  not  diminished  their  historical 
importance.  On  the  views  of  Scripture  there  pro- 
pounded Coleridge  himself  laid  great  stress.  In  the 
words  of  his  nephew,  "  he  pleaded  for  them  so  ear- 
nestly, as  the  only  middle  path  of  safety  and  peace 
between  a  godless  disregard  of  the  unique  and  trans- 
cendent character  of  the  Bible  taken  generally,  and 
that  scheme  of  interpretation,  scarcely  less  adverse  to 
the  pure  spirit  of  Christian  wisdom,  which  wildly 
arrays  our  faith  in  opposition  to  our  reason,  and  incul- 
cates the  sacrifice  of  the  latter  to  the  former,  that  to 
suppress  this  important  part  of  his  solemn  convictions, 
would  be  to  misrepresent  and  betray  him." 

When  these  letters  first  appeared,  they  struck  the 
loudest,  if  not  the  earliest  note,  which  till  then  had 
been  heard  in  England,  of  that  way  of  thought  which 
has  since  become  known  as  the  Critical  School.  Rec- 
ognizing, as  these  letters  did,  in  the  different  books  of 
Scripture,  various  degrees  and  diverse  modes  of  inspira- 
tion, and  in  all  the  books  the  co-presence  of  the  human 
element  with  the  Divine  Word,  they  startled  from 
their  "  dogmatic  slumbers  "  the  many  who  had  hitherto 
held  a  merely  mechanical  view  of  the  inspiring  Spirit. 
The  Critical  School,  which  in  this  country  may  be 
almost  said  to  date  its  rise  from  the  appearance  of 
these  letters,  has  since  then  parted  into  two  widely 


200  SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

divergent  paths.  One  party  have  so  busied  themselves 
with  investigating  the  earthly  accompaniments  of  time, 
place,  and  character,  that  they  seem  ever  less  and  less 
to  overhear  the  divine  voice  that  speaks  through  these. 
Those  who  have  taken  the  other  path,  while  examining 
closely  the  "earthen  vessel,"  and  its  historical  forma- 
tion, have  used  this  study  only  to  enable  them  to  pene- 
trate deeper  into  the  true  nature  of  the  heavenly 
treasure  which  it  enshrines.  That  these  last  are  the 
legitimate  representatives  of  the  Coleridgean  theology, 
the  true  inheritors  of  the  principles  he  taught,  will,  if 
I  have  interpreted  him  aright,  need  no  further  proof. 

Having  given  the  fullest  scope  to  his  own  inquiries 
on  all  subjects,  yet  in  a  spirit  of  reverence,  he  wished 
others  to  do  the  same,  believing  this  to  be  a  condition 
of  arriving  at  assured  convictions  of  truth.  He  was 
full  of  wise  and  large-hearted  tolerance,  —  not  that 
tolerance,  so  common  and  so  worthless,  which  easily 
bears  with  all  opinions,  because  it  earnestly  holds  none, 
—  but  that  tolerance,  attained  but  by  few,  which, 
holding  firmly  by  convictions  of  its  own,  and  making 
conscience  of  them,  would  neither  coerce  nor  condemn 
those  who  most  strongly  deny  them.  Heresy  he  be- 
lieved to  be  an  error,  not  of  the  head,  but  of  the  heart. 
He  distinguished  between  that  internal  faith  which  lies 
at  the  base  of  religious  character,  and  can  be  judged 
of  only  by  God,  and  that  belief  with  regard  to  facts 
and  doctrines,  in  which  good  men  may  err  without 
moral  obliquity.  His  works  abound  with  such  maxims 
as  this  :  "  Resist  every  false  doctrine  ;  but  call  no  man 
heretic.  The  false  doctrine  does  not  necessarily  make 
the  man  a  heretic ;  but  an  evil  heart  can  make  any 
doctrine  heretical." 

These  are  a  few  of  the  contemplations  with  which 
Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  busied  himself  during  the 


SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE.  201 

threescore  years  of  his  earthly  existence.  For  more 
than  thirty  years  now  he  has  been  beyond  them,  but 
these  he  has  left  behind  for  us  to  use  as  we  may. 
Those  who  remember  what  Coleridge  was  to  their 
youth,  may  fear  lest  in  their  estimate  of  him  now  they 
should  seem  to  be  mere  praisers  of  the  past,  and  yet, 
if  they  were  to  call  him  the  greatest  thinker  whom 
Britain  has  during  this  century  produced,  they  would 
be  but  stating  the  simple  truth,  For  if  any  should 
gainsay  this,  it  might  be  asked,  Whom  would  you  place 
by  his  side  ?  What  one  man  would  you  name  who  has 
thrown  upon  the  world  so  great  a  mass  of  original 
thinking,  has  awakened  so  much  new  thought  on  the 
most  important  subjects  ?  His  mind  was  a  very  treas- 
ure-house of  ideas,  of  which  many  have  gone  to  enrich 
the  various  departments  of  thought,  literary,  philosoph- 
:cal,  political,  and  religious  ;  while  others  still  lie  im- 
bedded in  his  works,  waiting  for  those  who  may  still 
turn  them  to  use.  And  all  he  wrote  was  in  the 
interest  of  man's  higher  nature,  true  to  his  best  aspira- 
tions. The  one  effort  of  all  his  works  was  to  build  up 
truth  from  the  spiritual  side.  He  brought  all  his 
transcendent  powers  of  intellect  to  the  help  of  the 
heart,  and  soul,  and  spirit  of  man  against  the  tyranny 
of  the  understanding,  that  understanding  which  ever 
strives  to  limit  truth  within  its  generalizations  from 
sense,  and  rejects  whatever  refuses  to  square  with 
these.  This  side  of  philosophy,  as  it  is  the  deepest,  is 
also  the  most  difficult  to  build  up.  Just  as  in  bridging 
some  broad  river,  that  part  of  the  work  which  has  to 
be  done  by  substructions  and  piers  beneath  the  water, 
is  much  more  laborious  and  important,  while  it  strikes 
less  upon  the  senses  than  the  arches  which  are  reared 
in  open  daylight ;  so  the  side  of  truth  which  holds  by 
the  seen  and  the  tangible,  which  never  quits  clear-cut 


202  SAMUEL    TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

conceptions,  and  refuses  to  acknowledge  whatever  will 
not  come  within  these,  is  much  more  patent  and 
plausible,  and,  in  this  country  at  least,  is  more  likely 
to  command  the  suffrages  of  the  majority.  Owing  to 
the  impulse  to  thought  which  proceeded  from  Coleridge, 
the  Sensationalists  experienced  for  a  time  a  brief  re- 
action ;  for  one  generation  he  turned  the  tide  against 
them ;  but  again  they  are  mustering  in  full  force,  and 
bid  fair  to  become  masters  of  the  position.  Their 
chief  teachers  have  for  some  time  —  by  the  merit,  it 
must  be  owned,  of  their  works  —  become  all  but  para- 
mount in  the  most  ancient  seats  of  learning.  In 
Oxford,  for  instance,  the  only  two  living  authors,  a 
knowledge  of  whose  works  is  imperatively  required  of 
candidates  for  highest  honors,  belong  to  this  school. 
And  there  is  no  counteracting  authority  speaking  from 
the  opposite,  that  is,  the  spiritual  side  of  philosophy, 
because  no  such  living  voice  is  amongst  us.  Whenever 
such  a  thinker  shall  arise,  he  will  have  to  take  up  the 
work  which  Coleridge  left  incomplete,  and  by  more 
patent  analysis,  and  more  systematic  exposition  of  the 
spiritual  element  which  enters  into  all  thought  and  all 
objects  of  thought,  to  make  good  as  reasoned  truth,  the 
ground  which  Coleridge  reached  only  by  far-reaching, 
but  fragmentary  intuition.  One  cannot  but  sometimes 
wonder  what  his  thoughts  would  have  been,  had  he 
been  living  now,  and  looking  forth  on  the  wide  field 
of  modern  speculation,  where  combatants,  more  numer- 
ous than  ever,  are,  with  voices  mutually  unintelligible, 
shouting  in  confused  night-battle.  And  not  for  the 
philosophy  only,  but  for  the  general  literature  and  the 
politics  of  our  time,  what  words  of  admonition  would 
he  have  had,  if  he  had  been  still  present  with  us  !  In 
his  own  day  the  oracle  of  the  Whigs  reserved  for  him 
its  bitterest  raillery,  while  Toryism  looked  coldly  on. 


SAMUEL   TAYLOR  COLERIDGE.  203 

He  would  hardly,  I  imagine,  have  been  more  popular 
with  the  dominant  factions  now,  Liberal  or  Conserva- 
tive, for  he  would  not  have  served  the  purposes  of 
either.  Neither  before  the  intellectual  idols  of  the 
hour,  whatever  names  they  bear,  would  he  have 
readily  bowed  down.  Rather  he  would  have  shown 
to  them  their  own  shortcomings,  as  seen  in  the  light 
of  a  more  catholic  and  comprehensive  wisdom.  Who 
can  doubt  this,  when  he  regards  either  the  spirit  of  his 
works,  so  deep-thoughted  and  reverent,  so  little  suited 
for  popularity,  or  the  attitude  in  which  he  stood  to- 
wards all  the  arbiters  of  praise  in  his  own  generation  ? 
But  the  best  thing  that  can  be  said  of  him  is,  that  he 
was  a  great  religious  philosopher.  And  by  this  how 
much  is  meant  ?  Not  a  religious  man  and  a  philoso- 
pher merely,  but  a  man  in  whom  these  two  powers  met 
and  interpenetrated.  There  are  instances  enough  in 
which  the  two  stand  opposed,  mutually  denouncing  each 
other;  instances  too  there  are  in  which,  though  not 
opposed,  they  live  apart,  the  philosophy  unleavened  by 
the  religion.  How  rare  have  been  the  examples,  at 
least  in  modern  times,  in  which  the  most  original  pow- 
ers of  intellect  and  imagination,  the  most  ardent  search 
for  truth,  and  the  largest  erudition,  have  united  with 
reverence  and  simple  Christian  faith  —  the  heart  of  the 
child  with  the  wisdom  of  the  sage!  He  who  has  left 
behind  him  a  philosophy,  however  incomplete,  in  which 
these  elements  combine,  has  done  for  his  fellow- men 
the  highest  service  human  thinker  can,  has  helped  to 
lighten  the  burden  of  the  mystery. 


KEBLE. 


THE  closing  chapter  of  Lockhart's  "  Life  of  Scott " 
begins  with  these  words :  "  "We  read  in  Solomon,  '  The 
heart  knoweth  his  own  bitterness,  and  a  stranger  doth 
not  intermeddle  with  his  joy ; '  and  a  wise  poet  of  our 
own  time  thus  beautifully  expands  the  saying  — 

" «  Why  should  we  faint  and  fear  to  live  alone, 

Since  all  alone,  so  Heaven  has  willed,  we  die, 
Nor  even  the  tenderest  heart,  and  next  our  own, 
Knows  half  the  reasons  why  we  smile  or  sigh  ? '  " 

On  glancing  to  the  footnote  to  see  who  the  wise  poet 
of  our  own  time  might  be,  the  reader  saw,  for  the  first 
time  perhaps,  the  name  of  KEBLE  and  "  The  Christian 
Year."  To  many,  in  Scotland  at  least,  this  was  the 
earliest  announcement  of  the  existence  of  the  poet,  and 
the  work  which  has  immortalized  him.  If  some  friend 
soon  afterwards  happened  to  bring  from  England  a 
copy  of  "  The  Christian  Year,"  and  make  a  present  of 
it,  the  young  reader  could  not  but  be  struck  by  a  lyric 
here  and  there,  which  opened  a  new  vein,  and  struck  a 
note  of  meditative  feeling,  not  exactly  like  anything  he 
had  heard  before.  But  the  little  book  contained  much 
that  was  strange  and  unintelligible,  some  things  even 
startling.  Very  vague  were  the  rumors  which  at  that 
time  reached  Scotland  of  the  author.  Men  said  he  be- 
longed to  a  party  of  Churchmen  who  were  making  a 
great  stir  in  Oxford,  and  leavening  the  University  with 


KEBLE.  205 

a  kind  of  thought  which  was  novel,  and  supposed  to  be 
dangerous.  The  most  definite  thing  said  was  that  the 
new  school  had  a  general  Romanizing  tendency.  But 
this  must  be  a  mistake  or  strange  exaggeration.  Folly 
and  sentimentalism  might  no  doubt  go  far  enough  at 
Oxford.  But  as  for  Romanism,  the  revival  of  such  an- 
tiquated nonsense  was  simply  impossible  in  this  en- 
lightened nineteenth  century.  If  such  an  absurdity 
were  to  show  itself  openly,  was  there  not  still  extanf 
the  "  Edinburgh  Review "  ready  to  crush  it  ?  To 
many  a  like  folly  ere  now  it  had  administered  the  qui- 
etus. Would  it  not  deal  as  summarily  with  this  one  too? 
Such  was  the  kind  of  talk  that  was  heard  when  Scott's 
"Life"  appeared  in  1838.  For  more  exact  information, 
young  men  who  were  inquisitive  had  to  wait,  till  a  few 
years  later  gave  them  opportunities  of  seeing  for  them- 
selves, and  coming  into  personal  contact  with  what  was 
actually  going  on  in  Oxford. 

It  was  a  strange  experience  for  a  young  man  trained 
anywhere,  much  more  for  one  born  and  bred  in  Scot- 
land, and  brought  up  a  Presbyterian,  to  enter  Oxford 
when  the  religious  movement  was  at  its  height.  He 
found  himself  all  at  once  in  the  midst  of  a  system  of 
teaching  which  unchurched  himself  and  all  whom  he 
had  hitherto  known.  In  his  simplicity  he  had  believed 
that  spiritual  religion  was  a  thing  of  the  heart,  and  that 
neither  Episcopacy  nor  Presbytery  availeth  anything. 
But  here  were  men  —  able,  learned,  devout-minded 
men  —  maintaining  that  outward  rites  and  ceremonies 
were  of  the  very  essence,  and  that  where  these  were 
not,  there  was  no  true  Christianity.  How  could  men, 
such  as  these  were  reported  to  be,  really  go  back  them- 
selves and  try  to  lead  others  back  to  what  were  but  the 
beggarly  elements  ?  It  was  all  very  perplexing,  not 
to  say  irritating.  However,  there  might  be  something 


206  KEBLE. 

more  behind,  which  a  young  man  could  not  understand. 
So  he  would  wait  and  see  what  he  should  see. 

Soon  he  came  to  know  that  the  only  portions  of 
Oxford  society  unaffected  by  the  new  influence,  were 
the  two  extremes.  The  older  dons,  that  is,  the  heads 
of  houses  and  the  senior  tutors,  were  unmoved  by  it, 
except  to  opposition.  The  whole  younger  half  of  the 
undergraduates  generally  took  no  part  in  it.  But  the 
great  body  that  lay  between  these  extremes,  that  is, 
most  of  the  younger  fellows  of  colleges,  and  most  of 
the  scholars  and  elder  undergraduates,  at  least  those 
of  them  who  read  or  thought  at  all,  were  in  some  way 
or  other  busy  with  the  new  questions.  When  in  time 
the  new  comer  began  to  know  some  of  the  men  who 
sympathized  with  the  movement,  his  first  impression 
was  of  something  constrained  and  reserved  in  their 
manners  and  deportment.  High  character  and  ability 
many  of  them  were  said  to  have  ;  but  to  a  chance 
observer  it  seemed  that,  in  as  far  as  their  system  had 
moulded  them,  it  had  made  them  the  opposite  of  nat- 
ural in  their  views  of  things,  and  in  their  whole  mental 
attitude.  You  longed  for  some  free  breath  of  moun- 
tain air  to  sweep  away  the  stifling  atmosphere  that 
was  about  you.  This  might  come  partly,  no  doubt, 
from  the  feeling  with  which  you  knew  that  these  men 
must  from  their  system  regard  you,  and  all  who  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  born  outside  of  their  sacred  pale. 
Not  that  they  ever  expressed  such  views  in  your  hear- 
ing. Good  manners,  as  well  as  their  habitual  reserve, 
forbade  this.  But,  though  they  did  not  say  it,  you 
knew  quite  well  that  they  felt  it.  And  if  at  any  time 
the  "  young  barbarian  "  put  a  direct  question,  or  made 
a  remark  which  went  straight  at  these  opinions,  they 
vrould  only  look  at  him,  astonished  at  his  rudeness  and 
profanity,  and  shrink  into  themselves. 


KEBLK  207 

Now  and  then,  however,  it  would  happen  that  some 
adherent,  or  even  leading  man  of  the  movement,  more 
frank  and  outspoken  than  the  rest,  would  deign  to 
speak  out  his  principles,  and  even  to  discuss  them  with 
undergraduates  and  controversial  Scots.  To  him  urg- 
ing the  necessity  of  Apostolical  Succession,  and  the 
sacerdotal  view  of  the  Sacraments,  some  young  man 
might  venture  to  reply,  "  Well !  if  all  you  say  be 
true,  then  I  never  can  have  known  a  Christian.  For 
up  to  this  time  I  have  lived  among  people  who  were 
strangers  to  all  these  things,  which,  you  tell  me,  are 
essentials  of  Christianity.  And  I  am  quite  sure  that, 
if  I  have  never  known  a  Christian  till  now,  I  shall 
never  know  one."  The  answer  to  this  would  probably 
be,  "  There  is  much  in  what  you  say.  No  doubt  high 
virtues,  very  like  the  Christian  graces,  are  to  be  found 
outside  of  the  Christian  Church.  But  it  is  a  remark- 
able thing,  those  best  acquainted  with  Church  history 
tell  me,  that  outside  of  the  pale  of  the  Church  the 
saintly  character  is  never  found."  This  naif  reply  was 
not  likely  to  have  much  weight  with  the  young  list- 
ener. It  would  have  taken  something  stronger  to 
make  him  break  faith  with  all  that  was  most  sacred 
in  his  early  recollections.  Beautiful  examples  of  Pres- 
byterian piety  had  stamped  impressions  on  his  memory 
not  to  be  effaced  by  sacerdotal  theories  or  subtleties 
of  the  schools.  And  the  Church  system  which  began 
by  disowning  these  examples  placed  a  barrier  to  its 
acceptance  at  the  very  outset 

But  however  unbelievable  their  theory,  further  ac- 
quaintance with  the  younger  men  of  the  new  school, 
whether  junior  fellows  or  undergraduate  scholars,  dis- 
closed many  traits  of  character  that  could  not  but 
awaken  respect  or  something  more.  If  there  was 
about  many  of  them  a  constraint  and  reserve  which 


208  KEBLE. 

seemed  unnatural,  there  was  also  in  many  an  unworld- 
liness  and  self-denial,  a  purity  of  life  and  elevation  of 
aim,  in  some  a  generosity  of  purpose  and  depth  of 
devotion,  not  to  be  gainsaid.  Could  the  movement 
which  produced  these  qualities,  or  even  attracted  them 
to  itself,  be  wholly  false  and  bad  ?  This  movement, 
moreover,  when  at  its  height,  extended  its  influence 
far  beyond  the  circle  of  those  who  directly  adopted  its 
views.  There  was  not,  in  Oxford  at  least,  a  reading 
man  who  was  not  more  or  less  indirectly  influenced 
by  it.  Only  the  very  idle  or  the  very  frivolous  were 
wholly  proof  against  it  On  all  others  it  impressed 
a  sobriety  of  conduct  and  a  seriousness  not  usually 
found  among  large  bodies  of  young  men.  It  raised 
the  tone  of  average  morality  in  Oxford  to  a  level  which 
perhaps  it  had  never  before  reached.  You  may  call 
it  over-wrought  and  too  highly  strung.  Perhaps  it 
was.  It  was  better,  however,  for  young  men  to  be  so, 
than  to  be  doubters  or  cynics. 

If  such  was  the  general  aspect  of  Oxford  society  at 
that  time,  where  was  the  centre  and  soul  from  which 
BO  mighty  a  power  emanated?  It  lay,  and  had  for 
some  years  lain,  mainly  in  one  man  —  a  man  in  many 
ways  the  most  remarkable  that  England  has  seen  dur- 
ing this  century,  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  whom 
the  English  Church  has  produced  in  any  century,  — 
John  Henry  Newman. 

The  influence  he  had  gamed,  apparently  without 
setting  himself  to  seek  it,  was  something  altogether 
unlike  anything  else  in  our  tune.  A  mysterious  ven- 
eration had  by  degrees  gathered  round  him,  till  now 
it  was  almost  as  though  some  Ambrose  or  Augustine 
of  elder  ages  had  reappeared.  He  himself  tells  how 
one  day,  when  he  was  an  undergraduate,  a  friend  with 


KEBLE.  209 

whom  he  was  walking  in  the  Oxford  street  cried  out 
eagerly,  "  There's  Keble ! "  and  with  what  awe  he 
looked  at  him !  A  few  years,  and  the  same  took 
place  with  regard  to  himself.  In  Oriel  Lane  light- 
hearted  undergraduates  would  drop  their  voices  and 
whisper,  "  There's  Newman  ! "  when,  head  thrust  for- 
ward, and  gaze  fixed  as  though  on  some  vision  seen 
only  by  himself,  with  swift,  noiseless  step  he  glided  by. 
Awe  fell  on  them  for  a  moment,  almost  as  if  it  had 
been  some  apparition  that  had  passed.  For  his  inner 
circle  of  friends,  many  of  them  younger  men,  he  was 
said  to  have  a  quite  romantic  affection,  which  they  re- 
turned with  the  most  ardent  devotion  and  the  intensest 
faith  in  him.  But  to  the  outer  world  he  was  a  mys- 
tery. What  were  the  qualities  that  inspired  these 
feelings  ?  There  was  of  course  learning  and  refine- 
ment, there  was  genius,  not  indeed  of  a  philosopher, 
but  of  a  subtle  and  original  thinker,  an  unequaled 
edge  of  dialectic,  and  these  all  glorified  by  the  imagi- 
nation of  a  poet.  Then  there  was  the  utter  unworld- 
liness,  the  setting  at  naught  of  all  things  which  men 
most  prize,  the  tamelessness  of  soul,  which  was  ready 
to  essay  the  impossible.  Men  felt  that  here  was  — 

"  One  of  that  small  transfigured  band 
Which  the  world  cannot  tame." 

It  was  this  mysteriousness  which,  beyond  all  his  gifts 
of  head  and  heart,  so  strangely  fascinated  and  over- 
awed, —  that  something  about  him  which  made  it  im- 
possible to  reckon  his  course  and  take  his  bearings, 
that  soul-hunger  and  quenchless  yearning  which  nothing 
short  of  the  eternal  could  satisfy.  This  deep  and  reso- 
lute ardor,  this  tenderness  yet  severity  of  soul,  were 
no  doubt  an  offense  not  to  be  forgiven  by  older  men, 
especially  by  the  wary  and  worldly-wise  ;  but  in  these 
14 


210  KEBLE. 

lay  the  very  spell  which  drew  to  him  the  hearts  of  all 
the  younger  and  the  more  enthusiastic.  Such  was  the 
impression  he  had  made  in  Oxford  just  before  he  re- 
linquished his  hold  on  it.  And  if  at  that  time  it  seemed 
to  persons  at  a  distance  extravagant  and  absurd,  they 
may  since  have  learnt  that  there  was  in  him  who  was 
the  object  of  this  reverence  enough  to  justify  it. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  What  actions  or  definite  results 
were  there  to  account  for  so  deep  and  wide-spread  a 
veneration  ?  There  were  no  doubt  the  numerous  prod- 
ucts of  his  prolific  pen,  his  works,  controversial,  theo- 
logical, religious.  But  none  of  these  were  so  deep  in 
learning  as  some  of  Dr.  Pusey's  writings,  nor  so  widely 
popular  as  "  The  Christian  Year ; "  and  yet  both  Dr. 
Pusey  and  Mr.  Keble  were  at  that  time  quite  second  in 
importance  to  Mr.  Newman.  The  centre  from  which 
his  power  went  forth  was  the  pulpit  of  St.  Mary's, 
with  those  wonderful  afternoon  sermons.  Sunday  after 
Sunday,  month  by  month,  year  by  year,  they  went  on, 
each  continuing  and  deepening  the  impression  the  last 
had  made.  As  the  afternoon  service  at  St.  Mary's 
interfered  with  the  dinner-hour  of  the  colleges,  most 
men  preferred  a  warm  dinner  without  Newman's  sermon 
to  a  cold  one  with  it,  so  the  audience  was  not  crowded 
—  the  large  church  little  more  than  half  filled.  The 
service  was  very  simple,  —  no  pomp,  no  ritualism ;  for 
it  was  characteristic  of  the  leading  men  of  the  move- 
ment that  they  left  these  things  to  the  weaker  brethren. 
Their  thoughts,  at  all  events,  were  set  on  great  ques- 
tions which  touched  the  heart  of  unseen  things.  About 
the  service,  the  most  remarkable  thing  was  the  beauty, 
the  silver  intonation,  of  Mr.  Newman's  voice,  as  he  read 
the  Lessons.  It  seemed  to  bring  new  meaning  out  of  the 
familiar  words.  Still  lingers  in  memory  the  tone  with 
which  he  read,  "  But  Jerusalem  which  is  above  is  free, 


KEBLE.  211 

which  is  the  mother  of  us  all."  When  he  began  to 
preach,  a  stranger  was  not  likely  to  be  much  struck, 
especially  if  he  had  been  accustomed  to  pulpit  oratory 
of  the  Boanerges  sort.  Here  was  no  vehemence,  no 
declamation,  no  show  of  elaborated  argument,  so  that 
one  who  came  prepared  to  hear  a  "  great  intellectual 
effort"  was  almost  sure  to  go  away  disappointed. 
Indeed,  I  believe  that  if  he  had  preached  one  of  his 
St.  Mary's  sermons  before  a  Scotch  town  congregation, 
they  would  have  thought  the  preacher  a  "  silly  body." 
The  delivery  had  a  peculiarity  which  it  took  a  new 
hearer  some  time  to  get  over.  Each  separate  sentence, 
or  at  least  each  short  paragraph,  was  spoken  rapidly, 
but  with  great  clearness  of  intonation  ;  and  then  at  its 
close  there  was  a  pause,  lasting  for  nearly  half  a  min- 
ute ;  then  another  rapidly  but  clearly  spo'ken  sentence, 
followed  by  another  pause.  It  took  some  time  to  get 
over  this,  but,  that  once  done,  the  wonderful  charm 
began  to  dawn  on  you.  The  look  and  bearing  of  the 
preacher  were  as  of  one  who  dwelt  apart,  who,  though 
he  knew  his  age  well,  did  not  live  in  it.  From  his 
seclusion  of  study,  and  abstinence,  and  prayer,  from 
habitual  dwelling  in  the  unseen,  he  seemed  to  come 
forth  that  one  day  of  the  week  to  speak  to  others  of  the 
things  he  had  seen  and  known.  Those  who  never 
heard  him  might  fancy  that  his  sermons  would  generally 
be  about  apostolical  succession  or  rights  of  the  Church, 
or  against  Dissenters.  Nothing  of  the  kind.  You 
might  hear  him  preach  for  weeks  without  an  allusion  to 
these  tilings.  What  there  was  of  High  Church  teach- 
ing was  implied  rather  than  enforced.  The  local,  the 
temporary,  and  the  modern  were  ennobled  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  catholic  truth  belonging  to  all  ages  that 
pervaded  the  whole.  His  power  showed  itself  chiefly 
in  the  new  and  unlooked-for  way  in  which  he  touched 


212  KEBLE. 

into  life  old  truths,  moral  or  spiritual,  which  all  Chris- 
tians acknowledge,  but  most  have  ceased  to  feel  —  when 
he  spoke  of  "  Unreal  Words,"  of  "  The  Individuality  of 
the  Soul,"  of  "  The  Invisible  World,"  of  a  «  Particular 
Providence ;  "  or  again,  of  "  The  Ventures  of  Faith," 
"  Warfare  the  condition  of  Victory,"  "  The  Cross  of 
Christ  the  Measure  of  the  World,"  "  The  Church  a 
Home  for  the  Lonely."  As  he  spoke,  how  the  old 
truth  became  new !  how  it  came  home  with  a  meaning 
never  felt  before  !  He  laid  his  finger  —  how  gently, 
yet  how  powerfully  !  —  on  some  inner  place  in  the 
hearer's  heart,  and  told  him  things  about  himself  he 
had  never  known  till  then.  Subtlest  truths,  which  it 
would  have  taken  philosophers  pages  of  circumlocution 
and  big  words  to  state,  were  dropt  out  by  the  way  in  a 
sentence  or  two  of  the  most  transparent  Saxon.  What 
delicacy  of  style,  yet  what  calm  power!  how  gentle,  yet 
how  strong !  how  simple,  yet  how  suggestive !  how 
homely,  yet  how  refined !  how  penetrating,  yet  how 
tender-hearted  !  If  now  and  then  there  was  a  forlorn 
undertone  which  at  the  time  seemed  inexplicable,  if  he 
spoke  of  "  many  a  sad  secret  which  a  man  dare  not  tell 
lest  he  find  no  sympathy,"  of  "  secrets  lying  like  cold 
ice  upon  the  heart,"  of  "  some  solitary  incommunicable 
grief,"  you  might  be  perplexed  at  the  drift  of  what  he 
spoke,  but  you  felt  all  the  more  drawn  to  the  speaker. 
To  call  these  sermons  eloquent  would  be  no  word  for 
them ;  high  poems  they  rather  were,  as  of  an  inspired 
singer,  or  the  outpourings  as  of  a  prophet,  rapt  yet  self- 
possessed.  And  the  tone  of  voice  in  which  they  were 
spoken,  once  you  grew  accustomed  to  it,  sounded  like  a 
fine  strain  of  unearthly  music.  Through  the  stillness 
of  that  high  Gothic  building  the  words  fell  on  the  ear 
like  the  measured  drippings  of  water  in  some  vast  dim 
cave.  After  hearing  these  sermons  you  might  come 


KEBLE.  213 

away  still  not  believing  the  tenets  peculiar  to  the  High 
Church  system ;  but  you  would  be  harder  than  most 
men,  if  you  did  not  feel  more  than  ever  ashamed  of 
coarseness,  selfishness,  worldliness,  if  you  did  not  feel 
the  things  of  faith  brought  closer  to  the  soul. 

There  was  one  occasion  of  a  different  kind,  when  he 
spoke  from  St.  Mary's  pulpit  for  the  last  time,  not  as 
Parish  minister,  but  as  University  preacher.  It  was 
the  crisis  of  the  movement.  On  the  2d  of  February, 
1843,  the  Feast  of  the  Purification,  all  Oxford  assem- 
bled to  hear  what  Newman  had  to  say,  and  St.  Mary's 
was  crowded  to  the  door.  The  subject  he  spoke  of  was 
"The  theory  of  Development  in  Christian  Doctrine," 
a  subject  which  since  then  has  become  common  prop- 
erty, but  which  at  that  time  was  new  even  to  the 
ablest  men  in  Oxford.  For  an  hour  and  a  half  he 
drew  out  the  argument,  and  perhaps  the  acutest  there 
did  not  quite  follow  the  entire  line  of  thought,  or  felt 
wearied  by  the  length  of  it,  lightened  though  it  was 
by  some  startling  illustrations.  Such  was  the  famous 
"  Protestantism  has  at  various  times  developed  into 
Polygamy,"  or  the  still  more  famous  "  Scripture  says  the 
sun  moves  round  the  earth,  Science  that  the  earth  moves, 
and  the  sun  is  comparatively  at  rest.  How  can  we  de- 
termine which  of  these  opposite  statements  is  true,  till 
we  know  what  motion  is  ?  "  Few  probably  who  heard  it 
have  forgot  the  tone  of  voice  with  which  he  uttered 
the  beautiful  passage  about  music  as  the  audible  em- 
bodiment of  some  unknown  reality  behind,  itself 
sweeping  like  a  strain  of  splendid  music  out  of  the 
heart  of  a  subtle  argument :  — 

"  Take  another  instance  of  an  outward  and  earthly 
form,  or  economy,  under  which  great  wonders  unknown 
seem  to  be  typified ;  I  mean  musical  sounds,  as  they 
are  exhibited  most  perfectly  in  instrumental  harmony. 


214  KEBLE. 

There  are  seven  notes  in  the  scale ;  make  them  four- 
teen ;  yet  what  a  slender  outfit  for  so  vast  an  enter- 
prise !  What  science  brings  so  much  out  of  so  little  ? 
Out  of  what  poor  elements  does  some  master  create 
his  new  world  !  Shall  we  say  that  all  this  exuberant 
inventiveness  is  a  mere  ingenuity  or  trick  of  art,  like 
some  game  or  fashion  of  the  day,  without  reality,  with- 
out meaning  ?  We  may  do  so  ;  and  then,  perhaps,  we 
shall  also  account  the  science  of  theology  to  be  a  mat- 
ter of  words ;  yet,  as  there  is  a  divinity  in  the  theology 
of  the  Church,  which  those  who  feel  cannot  communi- 
cate, so  there  is  also  in  the  wonderful  creation  of  sub- 
limity and  beauty  of  which  I  am  speaking.  To  many 
men  the  very  names  which  the  science  employs  are 
utterly  incomprehensible.  To  speak  of  an  idea  or  a 
subject  seems  to  be  fanciful  or  trifling,  and  of  the  views 
which  it  opens  upon  us  to  be  childish  extravagance  ; 
yet  is  it  possible  that  that  inexhaustible  evolution  and 
disposition  of  notes,  so  rich  yet  so  simple,  so  intricate 
yet  so  regulated,  so  various  yet  so  majestic,  should  be  a 
mere  sound  which  is  gone  and  perishes  ?  Can  it  be 
that  those  mysterious  stirrings  of  heart,  and  keen  emo- 
tions, and  strange  yearnings  after  we  know  not  what, 
and  awful  impressions  from  we  know  not  whence, 
should  be  wrought  in  us  by  what  is  unsubstantial,  and 
comes  and  goes,  and  begins  and  ends  in  itself?  It  is 
not  so !  it  cannot  be.  No ;  they  have  escaped  from 
some  higher  sphere ;  they  are  the  outpourings  of  eter- 
nal harmony  in  the  medium  of  created  sound ;  they 
are  echoes  from  our  Home ;  they  are  the  voices  of  An- 
gels, or  the  Magnificat  of  Saints,  or  the  living  laws 
of  Divine  governance,  or  the  Divine  attributes  ;  some- 
thing are  they  besides  themselves,  which  we  cannot 
compass,  which  we  cannot  utter,  though  mortal  man, 
and  he  perhaps  not  otherwise  distinguished  above  his 
fellows,  has  the  power  of  eliciting  them." 


KEBLE.  215 

This  was  preached  in  the  winter  \of  1843,  the  last 
time  he  appeared  in  the  University  pulpit.  His  paro- 
chial sermons  had  by  this  time  assumed  an  uneasy  tone 
which  perplexed  his  followers  with  fear  of  change. 
That  summer  solved  their  doubt.  In  the  quiet  chapel 
of  Littlemore,  which  he  himself  had  built,  when  all 
Oxford  was  absent  during  the  long  vacation,  he 
preached  his  last  Anglican  sermon  to  the  country  peo- 
ple and  only  a  few  friends,  and  poured  forth  that 
mournful  and  thrilling  farewell  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. The  sermon  is  entitled  "  The  Parting  of 
Friends."  The  text  was  "  Man  goeth  forth  to  his 
work  and  his  labor  until  the  evening."  He  went 
through  all  the  instances  which  Scripture  records  of 
human  affection  sorely  tried,  reproducing  the  incidents 
almost  in  the  very  words  of  Scripture,  —  Jacob,  Ha- 
gar,  Naomi,  Jonathan  and  David,  St.  Paul  and  the 
elders  of  Ephesus,  and  last,  the  weeping  over  Jerusa- 
lem, and  the  "  Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto  you  deso- 
late,"—  and  then  he  bursts  forth  — 

H  A  lesson,  surely,  and  a  warning  to  us  all,  in  every 
place  where  He  puts  his  name,  to  the  end  of  time,  lest 
we  be  cold  towards  his  gifts,  or  unbelieving  towards 
his  word,  or  jealous  of  his  workings,  or  heartless  to- 
wards his  mercies O  mother  of  saints !  O 

school  of  the  wise  !  O  nurse  of  the  heroic  !  of  whom 
went  forth,  in  whom  have  dwelt  memorable  names  of 
old,  to  spread  the  truth  abroad,  or  to  cherish  and  il- 
lustrate it  at  home  !  0  thou,  from  whom  surrounding 
nations  lit  their  lamps !  O  virgin  of  Israel !  where- 
fore dost  thou  now  sit  on  the  ground  and  keep  si- 
lence, like  one  of  the  foolish  women  who  were  with- 
out oil  on  the  coming  of  the  Bridegroom?  Where 
is  now  the  ruler  in  Sion,  and  the  doctor  in  the  Tem- 
ple, and  the  ascetic  on  Carmel,  and  the  herald  in  the 


216  KEBLE. 

wilderness,  and  the  preacher  in  the  market-place? 
Where  are  thy  '  effectual  fervent  prayers  '  offered  in 
secret,  and  thy  alms  and  good  works  coming  up  as  a 
memorial  before  God  ?  How  is  it,  0  once  holy  place, 
that  "  the  land  mourneth,  for  the  corn  is  wasted,  the 
new  wine  is  dried  up,  the  oil  languisheth,  because  joy 
is  withered  away  from  the  sons  of  men '  ?  '  Alas  for 
the  day  !  how  do  the  beasts  groan  !  the  herds  of  cattle 
are  perplexed,  because  they  have  no  pasture;  yea,  the 
flocks  are  made  desolate.'  '  Lebanon  is  ashamed  and 
hewn  down ;  Sharon  is  like  a  wilderness,  and  Bashan 
and  Carmel  shake  off  their  fruits.'  O  my  mother, 
whence  is  this  unto  thee,  that  thou  hast  good  things 
poured  upon  thee  and  canst  not  keep  them,  and  bearest 
children,  yet  darest  not  own  them  ?  Why  hast  thou 
not  the  skill  to  use  their  services,  nor  the  heart  to  re- 
joice in  their  love?  How  is  it  that  whatever  is  gener- 
ous in  purpose,  and  tender  or  deep  in  devotion,  thy 
flower  and  thy  promise  falls  from  thy  bosom,  and  finds 
no  home  within  thine  arms?  Who  hath  put  this  note 
upon  thee,  to  have  'a  miscarrying  womb  and  dry 
breasts,'  to  be  strange  to  thine  own  flesh,  and  thine 
eye  cruel  to  thy  little  ones  ?  Thine  own  offspring,  the 
fruit  of  thy  womb,  who  would  love  thee  and  would 
toil  for  thee,  thou  dost  gaze  upon  with  fear  as  though  a 
portent,  or  thou  dost  loathe  as  an  offense ;  at  best  thou 
dost  but  endure,  as  if  they  had  no  claim  but  on  thy 
patience,  self-possession,  and  vigilance,  to  be  rid  of 
them  as  easily  as  thou  mayest.  Thou  makest  them 
'  stand  all  the  day  idle '  as  the  very  condition  of  thy 
bearing  with  them ;  or  thou  biddest  them  begone  where 
they  will  be  more  welcome ;  or  thou  sellest  them  for 
naught  to  the  stranger  that  passes  by.  And  what  wilt 
thou  do  in  the  end  thereof? 

"  Scripture  is  a  refuge  in  any  trouble  ;  only  let  us 


KEBLE.  217 

be  on  our  guard  against  seeming  to  use  it  further  than 
is  fitting,  or  doing  more  than  sheltering  ourselves  under 
its  shadow.  Let  us  use  it  according  to  our  measure. 
It  is  far  higher  and  wider  than  our  need,  and  it  con- 
ceals our  feelings  while  it  gives  expression  to  them. 
It  is  sacred  and  heavenly ;  and  it  restrains  and  purifies, 

while  it  sanctions  them And  O  my  brethren,  O 

kind  and  affectionate  hearts,  0  loving  friends,  should 
you  know  any  one  whose  lot  it  has  been,  by  writing  or 
by  word  of  mouth,  in  some  degree  to  help  you  thus  to 
act ;  if  he  has  ever  told  you  what  you  knew  about 
yourselves,  or  what  you  did  not  know  ;  has  read  to  you 
your  wants  and  feelings,  and  comforted  you  by  the  very 
reading  ;  has  made  you  feel  that  there  was  a  higher 
life  than  this  daily  one,  and  a  brighter  world  than  that 
you  see ;  or  encouraged  you,  or  sobered  you,  or  opened 
a  way  to  the  inquiring,  or  soothed  the  perplexed,  if 
what  he  has  said  or  done  has  ever  made  you  take  in- 
terest in  him,  and  feel  well-inclined  towards  him,  re- 
member such  a  one  in  time  to  come,  though  you  hear 
him  not,  and  pray  for  him,  that  in  all  things  he  may 
know  God's  will,  and  at  all  tunes  he'  may  be  ready  to 
fulfill  it." 

Then  followed  the  resignation  of  his  fellowship,  the 
retirement  to  Littlemore,  the  withdrawal  even  from  the 
intercourse  of  his  friends,  the  unloosing  of  all  the  ties  that 
bound  him  to  Oxford,  the  two  years'  pondering  of  the 
step  he  was  about  to  take.  And  at  last,  when  in  1845 
he  went  away  to  the  Church  of  Home,  he  did  it  by 
himself,  making  himself  as  much  as  possible  responsible 
only  for  his  own  act,  and  followed  by  but  one  or  two 
young  friends  who  would  not  be  kept  back.  Those 
who  witnessed  these  things,  and  knew  that,  if  a  large 
following  had  been  his  object,  he  might,  by  leaving  the 
Church  of  England  three  years  earlier,  in  the  pleni- 


218  KEBLE. 

tude  of  his  power,  have  taken  almost  all  the  flower  of 
young  Oxford  with  him,  needed  no  "Apologia,"  to  con- 
vince them  of  his  honesty  of  purpose. 

On  these  things,  looking  over  an  interval  of  five  and 
twenty  years,  how  vividly  comes  back  the  remembrance 
of  the  aching  blank,  the  awful  pause,  which  fell  on 
Oxford  when  that  voice  had  ceased,  and  we  knew  that 
we  should  hear  it  no  more.  It  was  as  when,  to  one 
kneeling  by  night,  in  the  silence  of  some  vast  cathedral, 
the  great  bell  tolling  solemnly  overhead  has  suddenly 
gone  still.  To  many,  no  doubt,  the  pause  was  not  of 
long  continuance.  Soon  they  began  to  look  this  way 
and  that  for  new  teachers,  and  to  rush  vehemently  to 
the  opposite  extreme  of  thought.  But  there  were  those 
who  could  not  so  lightly  forget.  All  the  more  these 
withdrew  into  themselves.  On  Sunday  forenoons  and 
evenings,  in  the  retirement  of  their  rooms,  the  printed 
words  of  those  marvelous  sermons  would  thrill  them 
till  they  wept  "  abundant  and  most  sweet  tears."  Since 
then  many  voices  of  powerful  teachers  they  may  have 
heard,  but  none  that  ever  penetrated  the  soul  like  his. 

Such  was  the  impression  made  by  that  eventful  tune 
on  impartial  but  not  uninterested  spectators  —  on  those 
who  by  early  education  and  conviction  were  kept  quite 
aloof  from  the  peculiar  tenets  of  High  Churchmen,  but 
who  could  not  but  acknowledge  the  moral  quickening 
which  resulted  from  the  movement,  and  the  marvelous 
character  of  him  who  was  the  soul  of  it 

Dr.  Newman  himself  tells  us  that  all  the  while  the 
true  and  primary  author  of  that  movement  was  out  of 
sight  The  Rev.  John  Keble  was  at  a  distance  from 
Oxford,  in  his  vicarage  at  Hursley,  there  living  in  his 
own  life,  and  carrying  out  hi  his  daily  services  and  par- 
.Bh  ministry,  those  truths  which  he  had  first  brought 
forward,  and  Newman  had  carried  out,  in  Oxford.  But 


KEBLE.  219 

though  out  of  sight,  he  was  not  out  of  mind.  "  The 
Christian  Year"  was  in  the  hands  of  every  one,  even 
the  youngest  undergraduate.  Besides  its  more  intrinsic 
qualities,  the  tone  of  it  blended  .well  with  the  sentiment 
which  the  venerable  aspect  of  the  old  city  awakened. 
It  used  to  be  pleasing  to  try  and  identify  amid  the 
scenery  around  Oxford  some  of  the  spots  from  which 
were  drawn  those  descriptions  of  nature  with  which  the 
poems  are  inlaid.  During  these  years  the  poet-priest's 
figure  was  but  seldom  seen  in  the  streets  of  Oxford,  — 
only  when  some  great  question  affecting  the  Church, 
some  discussion  of  No.  90,  or  trial  of  Mr.  Ward,  had 
summoned  Convocation  together.  Once,  if  my  memory 
serves,  I  remember  to  have  seen  him  in  the  University 
pulpit  at  St.  Mary's,  but  his  voice  was  not  strong,  and 
did  not  reach  many  of  the  audience.  His  service  to  his 
party  had  lain  in  another  direction.  It  was  he  who, 
by  his  character,  had  first  awakened  a  new  tone  of  sen- 
timent in  Oxford,  and  attracted  to  himself  whatever  else 
was  like-minded.  He  had  sounded  the  first  note  which 
woke  that  sentiment  into  action,  and  embodied  it  in  a 
party.  He  had  kept  up,  though  from  a  distance,  sym- 
pathetic intercourse  with  the  chief  actors,  counseled 
and  encouraged  them.  Above  all,  he  gave  poetry  to 
the  movement,  and  a  poetic  aspect.  Polemics  by  them- 
selves are  dreary  work.  They  do  not  touch  the  springs 
of  young  hearts.  But  he  who,  in  the  midst  of  any  line 
of  thought,  unlocks  a  fountain  of  genuine  poetry,  does 
more  to  humanize  it  and  win  for  it  a  way  to  men's 
affections,  than  he  who  writes  a  hundred  volumes,  how- 
ever able,  of  controversy.  Without  disparagement  to 
the  patristic  and  other  learning  of  the  party,  the  two 
permanent  monuments  of  genius  which  it  has  be- 
queathed to  England  may  be  said  to  be  Newman's 
u  Parochial  Sermons,"  and  Keble's  "  Christian  Year." 


220  KEBLE. 

All  that  was  known  of  Keble  at  that  time  to  the 
outer  world  of  Oxford  was  vague  and  scanty.  The  few 
facts  here  added  are  taken  from  what  has  since  been 
made  public  by  two  of  his  most  attached  friends,  Sir 
John  Coleridge  and  Dr.  Newman,  the  former  in  his 
beautiful  letters,  memorial  of  Keble,  the  latter  in  his 
"  Apologia."  Yet  these  facts,  though  few,  are  well  worthy 
of  attention,  both  because  Keble's  character  is  more 
than  his  poetry,  and  because  his  poetry  can  only  be 
rightly  understood  in  the  light  of  his  character.  For 
there  is  no  poet  whose  poetry  is  more  truly  an  image 
of  the  man  himself,  both  in  his  inner  nature  and  in  his 
outward  circumstances. 

His  father,  whose  name  the  poet  bore,  was  a  country 
clergyman,  vicar  of  Gobi  St.  Aldwyns,  in  Gloucester- 
shire, but  the  house  in  which  he  lived,  and  in  which 
the  poet  was  born,  was  at  Fairford,  three  miles  distant 
from  the  cure.  John  was  the  second  child  and  elder 
son  of  a  family  which  consisted  of  two  sons  and  two 
daughters.  His  mother,  Sarah  Maule,  was,  as  I  have 
heard,  of  Scottish  extraction.  The  father,  who  lived 
till  his  ninetieth  year,  was  a  man  of  no  common  ability. 
Of  him  his  son,  we  are  told,  "  always  spoke  not  only 
with  the  love  of  a  son,  but  with  the  profoundest  rever- 
ence for  his  goodness  and  wisdom."  It  would  seem 
that  this  was  one  of  the  few  clerical  homes  in  England 
in  which  the  opinions,  traditions,  and  peculiar  piety  of 
the  Nonjurors  lived  on  into  the  present  century.  Un- 
like most  sons  distinguished  for  ability,  John  Keble 
never  outgrew  the  period  of  absolute  filial  reverence, 
never  questioned  a  single  opinion  or  prepossession 
which  he  had  imbibed  from  his  father.  Some  of  his 
less  reverential  companions  used  to  think  that  this  was 
an  intellectual  loss  to  him. 

The  father's  ability  and  scholarship  are  proved  by 


KEBLE.  221 

his  having  himself  educated  his  son,  and  sent  him  up  to 
Oxford  so  well  prepared,  that  at  the  age  of  fifteen  he 
gained  a  Corpus  scholarship,  an  honor  which  seems  to 
have  then  held  the  same  place  in  University  estimation 
that  Balliol  scholarships  have  long  held  and  still  hold. 
This  strictly  home  training,  in  the  quiet  of  a  Gloucester- 
shire parsonage,  placed  in  the  very  heart  of  rural  Eng- 
land, under  a  roof  where  the  old  High  Church  tradition 
lived  on,  blending  with  what  was  best  in  modern  piety, 
makes  itself  felt  in  every  line  the  poet  wrote.  On  all 
hands  one  hears  it  said  that  there  is  no  education  like 
that  of  one  of  the  old  English  public  schools.  For  the 
great  run  of  ordinary  boys,  whether  quick-witted  and 
competitive,  or  lazy  and  self-indulgent,  it  may  be  so  ; 
but  for  natures  of  finer  texture,  for  all  boys  who  have 
a  decided  and  original  bias,  how  much  is  there  that  the 
rough  handling  of  a  public  school  would  ruthlessly 
crush  ?  From  all  the  better  public  schools  coarse 
bullying,  I  know,  has  disappeared ;  but  for  peculiarity 
of  any  kind,  for  whatever  does  not  conform  itself  to  the 
"  tyrant  tradition  "  —  a  manly  and  straightforward  one, 
I  admit  —  they  have  still  but  little  tolerance.  If  Keble 
had  once  imbibed  the  public  school  spirit,  "  The  Chris- 
tian Year  "  would  either  never  have  been  written  at 
all,  or  it  would  have  been  written  otherwise  than  it  is. 

If  he  was  fortunate  in  having  his  boy-education  at 
home,  he  was  not  less  happy  in  the  college  which  he 
entered  and  the  companions  he  met  there.  It  is  the 
happiness  of  college  life  that  a  young  man  can  com- 
mand just  as  much  retirement,  and  as  much  society  as 
he  pleases,  and  of  the  kind  that  he  pleases.  All  read- 
ers of  Arnold's  life  will  remember  the  picture  there 
drawn  of  the  Scholars'  Common  Room  at  Corpus,  by 
one  of  the  last  survivors,  the  venerable  Sir  J.  Coleridge. 


222  KEBLE. 

He  tells  us  that,  when  Keble  came  into  residence,  early 
in  1807,  it  was  but  a  small  society,  numbering  only 
about  twenty  undergraduate  scholars,  and  these  rather 
under  the  usual  age,  who  lived  on  the  most  familiar 
terms  with  each  other.  The  Bachelor  scholars  resided 
and  lived  entirely  with  the  undergraduates.  Two  of 
Keble's  chief  friends  among  the  Corpus  scholars,  though 
younger  in  academic  standing  than  himself,  were  Cole- 
ridge (afterwards  Judge  Coleridge)  and  Arnold.  Keble 
indeed  must  have  already  graduated  before  Arnold 
came  into  residence.  Besides  these  were  many  other 
men  distinguished  in  their  day  in  the  University,  but 
less  known  to  the  outer  world.  It  was  a  stirring  time 
when  Keble  was  an  undergraduate.  Within  the  Uni- 
versity the  first  wakening  after  long  slumber  had  be- 
gun, and  competitions  for  honors  had  been  just  estab- 
lished. From  without  news  of  the  great  Peninsular 
battles  was  from  time  to  time  arriving.  Scott's  trum- 
pet-blasts of  poetry  were  stirring  young  hearts.  AU 
Corpus  Common  Room,  as  elsewhere,  the  Peninsular 
battles  were  fought  over  again,  and  the  classical  and 
romantic  schools  of  poetry  were  vehemently  discussed. 
And  among  these  more  exciting  subjects,  the  young 
scholar  Coleridge  would  insinuate  the  stiller  and  deeper 
tones  of  Wordsworth's  lyrical  ballads,  which,  then  but 
little  known,  he  had  heard  of  from  his  uncle  the  poet. 
These  two,  Scott  and  Wordsworth,  were  to  the  end 
Keble's  first  favorites  of  contemporary  poets,  and  chiefly 
moulded  his  taste  and  style.  Most  of  the  scholars  were 
high  Tories  in  Church  and  State,  great  respecters  of 
things  as  they  are :  none,  no  doubt,  more  so  than 
Keble.  The  great  questioner  of  the  prevailing  creed 
was  Arnold,  who  often  brought  down  on  his  own  head 
the  concentrated  arguments  of  the  whole  Common 
Room.  But  youth's  genial  warmth  healed  these  under- 


KEBLE.  223 

graduate  disputes,  as,  alas !  the  same  controversies 
could  not  be  healed  when  taken  up  by  the  same  com- 
batants at  a  later  day.  In  that  kindly  atmosphere 
Keble's  affectionate  nature  expanded  as  a  flower  in  the 
sun.  His  was  a  temperament  to  drink  in  deeply  what- 
ever there  was  of  finest  influence  in  Oxford.  No  doubt 
the  learning  he  there  gained  was  something  to  him,  but 
far  more  was  the  vision  of  the  fair  city  herself,  "with 
high  aisle,  and  solemn  cloister,  seated  among  groves, 
green  meadows,  and  calm  streams."  These,  and  the 
young  friendships  which  they  for  a  few  years  embosom, 
are  what  made  Oxford  then,  and  make  it  even  now,  the 
one  spot  in  England  wherein  "  the  curled  darlings  of 
the  nation  "  find  romance  still  realized.  Keble  seems 
to  have  been  much  the  same  in  character  then  as  in 
after  years.  His  affection,  to  wards  the  friends  he  made 
at  Oxford  was  warm  and  deep,  and  lasted  in  most  in- 
stances with  his  life.  "With  what  feelings  they  regarded 
him  may  be  gathered  from  the  words  of  his  brother 
scholar  at  Corpus,  who,  when  their  fifty-five  years' 
friendship  had  come  to  its  earthly  close,  could  say  of 
him,  "  It  was  the  singular  happiness  of  his  nature,  re- 
markable even  hi  his  undergraduate  days,  that  love  for 
him  was  always  sanctified,  as  it  were,  by  reverence  — 
reverence  that  did  not  make  the  love  less  tender,  and 
love  that  did  but  add  intensity  to  the  reverence." 

In  Easter  term,  1810,  Keble  obtained  double  first 
class  honors,  and  this  success  was  soon  afterwards 
followed  by  another  still  greater  —  his  election  to  an 
Oriel  fellowship.  The  Oriel  Common  Room  numbered 
among  its  Fellows,  then  and  for  some  tune  afterwards, 
all  that  was  most  distinguished  in  Oxford  for  mental 
power  and  originality.  Copleston,  Davidson,  Whately, 
then  belonged  to  it,  and  were  among  Keble's  electors. 
Arnold,  Newman,  Pusey,  soon  afterwards  followed  as 


224  KEBLE. 

Felloes  of  the  same  college.  "  Round  the  fire  of  the 
Oriel  Common  Room,"  we  are  told,  "  there  were 
learned  and  able,  not  rarely  subtle  and  disputatious 
conversations,  in  which  this  lad  of  nineteen  was  called 
to  take  his  part.  Amid  these  he  sometimes  yearned 
for  the  more  easy,  yet  not  unintellectual  society  of  his 
old  friends  at  Corpus."  He  found,  no  doubt,  that 
undergraduate  days  are  more  congenial  to  warm  friend- 
ships than  the  highly  rarefied  atmosphere  of  an  intel- 
lectual Common  Room.  Where  men  touch  chiefly  by 
the  head,  they  find  that  this  is  the  seat  as  frequently 
of  a  repulsive  as  of  an  attractive  force.  While  he  was 
an  undergraduate,  and  during  the  early  days  of  his 
fellowship,  he  wrote  a  good  many  beautiful  little  poems, 
which  surviving  friends  still  possess,  and  the  year  after 
his  election  to  Oriel  he  gained  the  University  prizes 
for  the  English  and  Latin  essay. 

The  interval  from  1810  to  1815  he  spent  in  Oriel, 
taking  part  in  college  tuition,  and  acting  as  an  exam- 
iner in  the  Degree  Schools.  Was  it  some  time  during 
these  years,  or  at  a  later  date,  that  the  incident  re- 
corded by  Dr.  Newman  took  place  ?  "  When  one  day 
I  was  walking  in  High  Street,  with  my  dear  earliest 
friend,  with  what  eagerness  did  he  cry  out,  'There's 
Keble ! '  and  with  what  awe  did  I  look  at  him  !  Then 
at  another  time  I  heard  a  Master  of  Arts  of  my  col- 
lege give  an  account,  how  he  had  just  then  had  occa- 
sion to  introduce  himself  on  some  business  to  Keble, 
and  how  gentle,  courteous,  and  unaffected  Keble  had 
been,  so  as  almost  to  put  him  out  of  countenance. 
Then,  too,  it  was  reported,  truly  or  falsely,  how  a 
rising  man  of  brilliant  reputation,  the  present  Dean  of 
St.  Paul's,  Dr.  Milman,  admired  and  loved  him,  adding 
that  somehow  he  was  strangely  unlike  any  one  else." 

In  1815  he  was  ordained  Deacon,  the  following  year 


KEBLE.  225 

Priest ;  soon  afterwards  he  left  the  University,  and 
never  again  permanently  resided  there.  He  had 
chosen  the  calling  of  a  clergyman,  and  though  within 
that  field  other  paths  more  gratifying  to  ambition  lay 
open  to  him,  he  turned  aside  from  them,  and  gave 
himself  to  parochial  work  as  the  serious  employment 
of  his  life.  He  became  his  father's  curate,  and  lived 
with  him  at  Fairford,  engaged  in  this  duty  for  twenty 
years,  more  or  less.  This  rare  absence  or  restraint  of 
ambition,  where  it  might  have  seemed  natural  or  even 
right  to  have  gratified  it,  was  quite  in  keeping  with 
Keble's  whole  character.  "  The  Church,"  says  Sir 
J.  Coleridge,  "  he  had  deliberately  chosen  to  be  his 
profession,  and  he  desired  to  follow  out  that  in  a 
country  cure.  With  this  he  associated,  and  scarcely 
placed  on  a  lower  level,  the  affectionate  discharge  of 
his  duties  as  a  son  and  brother.  Calls,  temporary  calls 
of  duty  to  his  college  and  University,  for  a  time  and  at 
intervals  diverted  him  (he  was  again  Public  Examiner 
from  1821  to  1823)  ;  but  he  always  kept  these  outlines 
in  view,  and  as  the  occasion  passed  away,  reverted  to 
them  with  the  permanent  devotion  of  his  heart. 
Traces  of  this  feeling  may  be  found  again  and  again  in 
<  The  Christian  Year.'  " 

This  book  was  first  given  to  the  world  on  the  23d 
of  June,  1827,  when  Keble  was  in  his  thirty-fifth  year. 
This,  the  great  work  of  his  life,  which  will  keep  his 
name  fresh  in  men's  memory  when  all  else  that  he  has 
done  shall  be  forgotten,  had  been  the  silent  gathering 
of  years.  Single  poems  had  been  in  his  friends'  hands 
at  least  as  early  as  1819.  They  had  urged  him  to 
complete  the  series,  and  by  1827  this  was  done.  No 
record  of  the  exact  time  when  each  poem  was  written 
has  yet  appeared.  I  should  imagine  that  more  of  them 
were  composed  at  Fairford  than  at  Oxford.  The  dis- 
15 


226  KEBLE. 

cussion  and  criticism  natural  to  a  University  are  not 
generally  favorable  to  poetic  creation  of  any  kind, 
least  of  all  to  so  meditative  a  strain  as  that  of  Keble. 
But  it  may  have  been  that  in  this,  as  in  other  things, 
he  was  "unlike  any  one  else."  It  was  only  at  the 
urgent  entreaty  of  his  friends  that  he  published  the 
little  book.  He  was  not  anxious  about  poetic  fame, 
and  never  thought  that  these  poems  would  secure  it. 
His  own  plan  was  "  to  go  on  improving  the  series  all 
his  life,  and  leave  it  to  come  out,  if  judged  useful,  only 
when  he  should  be  fairly  out  of  the  way."  Had  this 
plan  been  acted  on,  how  many  thousands  would  have 
been  defrauded  of  the  soothing  delight  these  poems 
have  ministered  to  them!  But  even  those  who  most 
strongly  counseled  the  publication,  little  dreamt  what 
a  destiny  was  in  store  for  that  little  book.  Of  course, 
if  the  author  had  kept  it  by  him  he  might  have 
smoothed  away  some  of  its  defects,  but  who  knows 
how  much  it  might  have  lost  too  in  the  process  ?  "  No 
one,"  we  are  told,  "  knew  its  literary  shortcomings 
better  than  the  author  himself.  Wisely,  and  not  in 
pride,  or  through  indolence,  he  abandoned  the  attempt 
at  second-hand  to  amend  this  inharmonious  line,  or 
that  imperfect  rhyme,  or  the  instances  here  and  there 
in  which  his  idea  may  be  somewhat  obscurely  ex- 
pressed. Wordsworth's  acute  poetical  sense  recognized 
such  faults  ;  yet  the  book  was  his  delight."  Probably 
it  was  a  wise  resolve.  All  emendation  of  poetry  long 
after  its  first  composition  runs  the  risk  of  spoiling  it. 
The  author  has  to  take  up  in  one  mood  what  was 
originally  conceived  in  another.  His  first  warm  feel- 
ing of  the  sentiment  has  gone  cold,  and  he  cannot  at  a 
later  time  revive  it.  This  is  true  of  all  poetry,  more 
especially  of  that  which  deals  with  subtle  and  evanes- 
cent emotions  which  can  never  perhaps  recur  exactly 


KEBLE.  227 

in  the  same  form.     Once  only  in  a  lifetime  may  he 
succeed  in  catching  — 

"  Those  brief  unisons  which  on  the  brain 
One  tone  that  never  can  recur  has  cast, 
One  accent  never  to  return  again." 

In  1833  Keble  was  appointed  Professor  of  Poetry 
at  Oxford.  The  Statutes  then  required  the  Professor 
to  give  two  or  three  lectures  a  year  in  Latin.  The 
ancient  language  was  required  to  be  spoken  from  this 
chair  longer  than  from  any  other,  probably  from  fear 
of  the  trash  men  might  talk  if  fairly  unmuzzled. 
However  prudent  this  may  have  been  when  a  merely 
average  functionary  held  the  chair,  it  is  greatly  to  be 
regretted  that  when  it  was  filled  by  a  true  poet,  who 
was  intent  on  speaking  the  secret  of  his  own  art,  he 
should  have  been  so  formidably  weighted.  The  pres- 
ent1 gifted  occupant  of  that  chair  has  fortunately  been 
set  free,  and  has  vindicated  the  newly  acquired  freedom 
by  enriching  our  literature  with  the  finest  poetical  criti- 
cism it  has  received  since  the  days  of  Coleridge.  But 
Keble  had  to  work  in  trammels.  He  was  the  last  man 
to  rebel  against  any  limitations  imposed  by  the  wisdom 
or  unwisdom  of  our  ancestors.  Faithfully  he  buckled 
himself  to  the  task  of  translating  into  well-rounded 
Latin  periods  his  cherished  thoughts  on  his  own  favor- 
ite subject.  Of  the  theory  of  poetry  embodied  in  the 
two  volumes  of  his  published  lectures,  something  may 
yet  be  said.  The  Latin  is  easy  and  unconstrained,  the 
thought  original  and  suggestive  —  a  great  contrast  to 
the  more  than  Ciceronian  paragraphs  of  his  predeces- 
sor Copleston,  bristling  as  they  do  to  a  marvel  with 
epigrammatic  Latinity,  but  underneath  that  containing 
little  that  is  not  commonplace. 

i  This  ought  now  to  be  "the  late  gifted  occupant,"  as  it  refers  to  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold. 


228  KEBLE. 

There  was  another  duty  which  fell  to  Keble  as  Pro- 
fessor of  Poetry,  —  to  choose  the  subject  for  the  an- 
nual Prize  Poem  at  Oxford,  to  adjudicate  along  with 
others  the  prize  to  the  best  of  the  poems  given  in,  and 
to  look  over  and  suggest  corrections  in  the  verses  of 
the  successful  competitor.  Of  all  these  winners  of  the 
Newdigate  Prize  one  only  has  described  his  interview 
with  Keble,  but  he  one  of  the  most  distinguished. 
Dean  Stanley,  who  gained  the  Newdigate  Prize  in,  I 
think,  1837,  with  his  beautiful  poem  on  "  The  Gypsies," 
thus  describes  his  first  meeting  with  Keble.  By  the 
Dean's  kind  leave  I  give  it  in  his  own  words,  taken 
from  his  paper  on  Keble,  now  published  in  "  Essays  on 
Church  and  State : "  "  There  are  still  living  those 
with  whom  his  discharge  of  one  of  his  duties  left  a  far 
livelier  recollection  than  his  Latin  lectures.  It  was 
part  of  his  office  to  correct  the  poems  which  during 
his  tenure  of  it  obtained  the  Newdigate  Prize.  One 
of  these  young  authors  still  retains  so  fresh  and  so 
characteristic  a  remembrance  of  his  intercourse  with 
the  Professor,  even  then  venerable  in  his  eyes,  that  it 
may  be  worth  recording.  He  recalls,  after  the  lapse 
of  more  than  thirty  years,  the  quiet  kindness  of  man- 
ner, the  bright  twinkling  eye  illuminating  that  other- 
wise inexpressive  countenance,  which  greeted  the 
bashful  student  on  his  entrance  into  the  Professor's 
presence.  One  touch  after  another  was  given  to  the 
juvenile  verses,  substituting  for  this  or  that  awkward 
phrase  graceful  turns  of  expression  all  his  own  :  — 

" '  Is  there  a  spot  where  earth's  dim  daylight  falls,' 

has  the  delicate  color  of    '  The    Christian   Year '  all 
over.     In  adding  the  expression  — 

"  'Where  shade,  air,  waters '  — 

he  dwelt  with  all  the  ardor  of  the  keenest  critic  on  the 


KEBLE.  229 

curious  subtlety  of  language,  by  which  *  water '  sug- 
gests all  that  is  prosaic,  and  '  waters '  all  that  is  poet- 
ical. 

"'The  heavens  all  gloom,  the  wearied  earth  all  crime  ; ' 

how  powerfully  does  this  embody  the  exhaustion  of 
Europe  in  the  fifteenth  century  !  '  The  storied  Sphinx/ 
'  India's  ocean-floods ;  '  how  vivid  are  these  glances  at 
the  phenomena  of  the  East ! 

'  The  wandering  Israelite,  from  year  to  year, 
Sees  the  Redeemer's  conquering  wheels  draw  near  ;  " 

how  thoroughly  here  is  Southey's  language  caught  from 
the  '  Curse  of  Kehama ; '  how  thoroughly,  too,  the 
Judaic  as  contrasted  with  the  Christian  Advent!  And 
it  may  be  added,  though  not  directly  bearing  on  the 
present  topic,  how  delighted  was  his  youthful  hearer  to 
perceive  the  sympathetic  warmth  with  which,  at  a  cer- 
tain point  in  the  poem,  he  said,  'Ah,  surely  this  was 
suggested  by  Dr.  Arnold's  sermon  on  "  The  Egyptians 
whom  ye  have  seen  to-day,  ye  shall  see  no  more  again 
forever." '  This  allusion  was  the  more  felt  as  showing 
his  recollection  of  the  friend  from  whom  at  that  time 
he  was  so  strangely  alienated." 

In  a  foot-note  Dean  Stanley  adds  that  "  on  glancing 
at  a  note  to  this  poem,  which  cited  from  Tennyson's 
'  Palace  of  Art,'  but  without  naming  the  poet,  the  line 

" « Who  shuts  love  out  shall  be  shut  out  from  love,' 

Keble  remarked  '  Shakespeare.'  The  Laureate  will 
forgive  this  ignorance  of  his  early  fame  in  considera- 
tion of  the  grandeur  of  the  comparison." 

In  this  vivid  description  one  thing  Dean  Stanley 
has  refrained  from  giving,  the  "  certain  point  in  his 
poem"  which  Keble  recognized  as  suggested  by  Dr. 
Arnold's  sermon.  But  the  lines  are  too  good  to  be 
thus  passed  over.  Taking  the  view  of  the  Gypsies, 


230  KEBLE. 

as  having  had  their  original  home  in  Egypt,  the 
thought  occurs  to  the  young  poet,  that  they  and  the 
Jews  during  their  Egyptian  sojourn  must  have  met. 
And  then  he  bursts  into  these  fine  lines,  full  of  his 
own  pictorial  genius  :  — 

"  Long  since  ye  parted  by  the  Red  Sea  strand, 
NQW  face  to  face  ye  meet  in  every  land, 
Aliens  amidst  a  new-born  world  to  dwell, 
Egypt's  lorn  people,  outcast  Israel." 

With  slight  interruptions  Keble  continued  to  live 
with  his  father  at  Fairford,  and  to  assist  him  as  his 
curate  till  1835.  "  In  that  year  this  tie  was  broken. 
At  the  very  commencement  of  it  the  venerable  old 
man,  who  to  the  last  retained  the  full  use  of  his  facul- 
ties, was  taken  to  his  rest ;  and  before  the  end  of  it 
Keble  became  the  Vicar  of  Hursley,  and  the  husband 
of  Miss  Charlotte  Clarke,  second  daughter  of  an  old 
college  friend  of  his  father's,  who  was  incumbent  of  a 
parish  in  the  neighborhood  of  Fairford.  This  was 
the  happy  settlement  of  his  life.  For  himself  he  had 
now  no  ungratified  wish,  and  the  bonds  then  tied  were 
loosened  only  by  death." 

Only  two  years  before  Keble  left  Fairford,  and  at 
the  very  time  when  he  entered  on  his  Poetry  Profes- 
-orship,  began  what  is  called  the  Oxford  Movement. 
Of  this,  Dr.  Newman  tells  us,  Keble  was  the  real 
author.  Let  us  cast  a  glance  back,  and  see  how  it 
arose,  and  what  it  aimed  at.  "With  what  feelings  New- 
man, when  an  undergraduate,  looked  at  Keble,  we 
have  seen.  Some  years  afterwards,  it  must  have  been 
in  1819  or  1820,  Newman  was  elected  to  the  Oriel 
Fellowship  which  Arnold  vacated.  Of  that  time  he 
thus  writes  :  "  I  had  to  hasten  to  the  Tower  to  re- 
ceive the  congratulations  of  all  the  Fellows.  I  bore 


KEBLE.  231 

it  till  Keble  took  my  hand,  and  then  felt  so  abashed 
and  unworthy  of  the  honor  done  me,  that  I  seemed 
quite  desirous  of  sinking  into  the  ground.  His  had 
been  the  first  name  I  had  heard  spoken  of  with  rever- 
ence rather  than  admiration  when  I  came  up  to  Ox- 
ford." This  was  probably  the  first  meeting  of  these 
two.  "When  I  was  elected  Fellow  of  Oriel,"  Dr. 
Newman  continues,  "  Keble  was  not  in  residence,  and 
he  was  shy  of  me  for  years,  in  consequence  of  the 
marks  I  bore  upon  me  of  the  evangelical  and  liberal 
schools.  Hurrell  Froude  brought  us  together  about 
1828.  It  is  one  of  his  sayings  preserved  in  his  Re- 
mains :  '  If  I  was  ever  asked  what  good  deed  I  had 
ever  done,  I  should  say  that  I  had  brought  Keble  and 
Newman  to  understand  each  other.' "  The  friendship 
thus  cemented  was  to  be  fruitful  of  results  for  England. 
It  naturally  occurs  to  ask,  How  far  is  "  The  Christian 
Year  "  identified  with  the  principles  of  the  Tractarian 
movement  ?  On  the  one  hand,  "  The  Christian  Year  " 
was  published  in  1827  ;  the  movement  did  not  begin 
till  1833.  The  former,  therefore,  cannot  be  regarded 
as  in  any  way  a  child  of  the  latter.  And  this  accounts 
for  what  has  often  been  remarked,  how  little  of  the 
peculiar  Tractariau  teaching  appears  in  these  poems. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  same  na- 
ture which,  in  a  season  of  quiet,  when  controversy  was 
at  a  lull,  shaped  out  of  its  own  musings  "  The  Chris- 
tian Year,"  would,  when  confronted  with  opposing 
tendencies,  and  forced  into  a  dogmatic  attitude,  find 
its  true  expression  in  the  Tractarian  theory.  Keble 
was  by  nature  a  poet,  living  by  intuition,  not  by  rea- 
soning ;  intuition  born  of,  fed  by,  home  affection,  tra- 
dition, devout  religion.  His  whole  being  leaned  on 
authority.  "  Keble  was  a  man  who  guided  himself," 
says  Dr.  Newman,  "  and  formed  his  judgments,  not  by 


232  KEBLE. 

processes  of  reason,  by  inquiry  or  argument,  but,  to 
use  the  word  in  a  broad  sense,  by  authority."  And 
by  authority  in  its  broad  sense  he  means  conscience, 
the  Bible,  the  Church,  antiquity,  words  of  the  wise, 
hereditary  lessons,  ethical  truths,  historical  memories. 
"  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  he  felt  ever  happier  when  he 
could  speak  and  act  under  some  such  primary  and 
external  sanction  ;  and  could  use  argument  mainly  as 
a  means  of  recommending  or  explaining  what  had 
claims  on  his  reception  prior  to  proof.  What  he 
hated  instinctively  was  heresy,  insubordination,  resist- 
ance to  things  established,  claims  of  independence,  dis- 
loyalty, innovation,  a  critical  or  censorious  spirit." 
Keble  then  lived  by  authority,  and  hated  the  disposi- 
tions that  oppose  it.  There  is  a  temper  of  mind  which 
lives  by  denying  authority  —  a  temper  whose  essence, 
or  at  least  whose  bad  side,  is  to  foster  these  very  dis- 
positions which  he  hated.  With  that  tone  of  mind, 
and  the  men  possessed  by  it,  sooner  or  later  he  must 
needs  have  come  into  collision.  For  such  a  collision, 
Oxford  did  not  want  materials. 

During  Keble's  time  of  residence,  and  after  he  went 
down,  the  University  had  been  awakening  from  a  long 
torpor,  and  entering  on  a  new  era.  "  The  march  of 
the  mind,"  as  it  was  called,  was  led  by  a  number  of 
active-minded  and  able  men,  whose  chief  rallying  point 
was  Oriel  Common  Room,  whose  best  representative 
was  Whately.  These  men  had  set  themselves  to  raise 
the  standard  of  teaching  and  discipline  in  the  Colleges 
and  in  the  University.  They  were  the  University  Re- 
formers of  their  day,  and  to  them  Oxford,  when  first 
arousing  itself  from  long  intellectual  slumber,  owed 
much.  As  they  had  a  common  aim,  to  raise  the  intel- 
lectual standard,  they  were  naturally  much  thrown 
together,  and  became  the  celebrities  of  the  place. 


KEBLE.  233 

Those  who  did  not  belong  to  their  party  thought  them 
not  free  from  "  pride  of  reason,"  an  expression  then, 
as  now,  derided  by  those  who  think  themselves  intel- 
lectual, but  not  the  less  on  that  account  covering  a 
real  meaning.  It  is,  as  it  has  been  called,  "  the  moral 
malady  "  which  besets  those  who  live  mainly  by  intel- 
lect. Men  who  could  not  in  heart  go  along  with 
them  thought  they  carried  liberty  of  thought  into  pre- 
sumption and  rationalism.  They  seemed  to  submit 
the  things  of  faith  too  much  to  human  judgment,  and 
to  seek  to  limit  their  religious  belief  by  their  own  pow- 
ers of  understanding.  They  seemed  then,  as  now, 
"  to  halve  the  gospel  of  God's  grace,"  accepting  the 
morality,  and,  if  not  rejecting,  yet  making  little  of  the 
supernatural  truths  out  of  which  that  morality  springs. 
Such  at  least  was  the  judgment  of  their  opponents. 
In  the  presence  of  men  of  this  stamp,  energetic  but 
hard,  upright  but  not  over  humble  or  reverent,  a  man 
of  deep  religious  seriousness,  like  Keble,  instinctively 
"  shrank  into  himself."  "  He  was  young  in  years  when 
he  became  a  University  celebrity,  and  younger  in 
mind.  He  had  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  a  child. 
He  had  few  sympathies  with  the  intellectual  party, 
who  sincerely  welcomed  him  as  a  brilliant  specimen 
of  young  Oxford.  He  instinctively  shut  up  before 
literary  display,  and  pomp,  and  donnishness,  faults 
which  will  always  beset  academical  notabilities.  He 
did  not  respond  to  their  advances.  '  Poor  Keble,' 
Hurrell  Froude  used  gravely  to  say,  '  he  was  asked 
to  join  the  aristocracy  of  talent,  but  he  soon  found  his 
own  level.'  He  went  into  the  country,  but  he  did  not 
lose  his  place  in  the  minds  of  men  because  he  was  out 
of  sight."  It  could  not  be  that  Keble  and  these  men 
could  really  be  hi  harmony,  —  they,  "  sons  of  Auf- 
klarung,"  men  of  mere  understanding,  bringing  all 


234  KEBLE. 

things  to  the  one  touchstone  of  logic  and  common 
sense,  and  content  with  this ;  he,  a  child  of  faith,  with 
more  than  half  his  nature  in  the  unseen,  and  looking 
at  things  visible  mainly  as  they  shadow  forth  and  re- 
veal the  invisible.  They  represented  two  opposite 
sides  of  human  nature,  sides  in  all  but  some  rare 
instances  antagonistic,  and  never  seemingly  more  an- 
tagonistic that  now.  Dr.  Arnold,  indeed,  though  be- 
longing in  the  main  to  the  school  of  liberalism,  com- 
bined with  it  more  religious  warmth  than  was  common 
in  his  own  party.  It  is  this  union  of  qualities,  gener- 
ally thought  incompatible,  which  perhaps  was  the  mam 
secret  of  his  great  influence.  But  the  combination 
which  was  almost  unique  in  himself,  he  can  hardly  be 
said,  by  his  example,  to  have  rendered  more  easy  for 
his  followers  in  the  present  day. 

The  Catholic  Emancipation  was  a  trying  and  per- 
plexing time  for  Keble.  With  the  opponents  of  the 
measure  in  Oxford,  the  old  Tory  party  of  Church  and 
State,  he  had  no  sympathy.  He  saw  that  they  had  no 
principle  of  growth  in  them,  that  their  only  aim  was  to 
keep  things  as  they  were.  His  sympathy  for  the  old 
Catholic  religion,  that  feeling  which  had  made  him  say 
in  «  The  Christian  Year," 

"  Speak  gently  of  our  sister's  fall," 

would  naturally  make  him  wish  to  see  Catholic  disabili- 
ties removed.  But  then  he  disliked  both  the  men  by 
whom,  and  the  arguments  by  which,  Emancipation  was 
supported.  He  would  rather  have  not  seen  the  thing 
vlone  at  all,  than  done  by  the  hands  of  Whiggery.  A 
few  years  more  brought  on  the  crisis,  the  inevitable 
collision.  The  Earl  Grey  Administration,  flushed  with 
their  great  Reform  victory,  went  on  to  lay  hands  on 
the  English  Church,  that  Church  which  for  centuries 


KEBLE.  235 

had  withstood  the  Whigs.  They  made  their  attack  on 
the  weakest  point,  the  Irish  Church,  and  suppressed 
ten  of  its  bishoprics.  This  might  seem  to  be  but  a  small 
matter  in  itself,  but  it  was  an  indication  of  more  be- 
hind. Lord  Grey  had  told  the  Bishops  to  set  their 
house  in  order,  and  his  party  generally  spoke  of  the 
Church  as  the  mere  creature  of  the  State,  which  they 
might  do  with  as  they  pleased.  The  Church  must  be 
liberalized,  those  last  fangs  must  be  pulled  which  had 
so  often  proved  troublesome  to  Whiggery.  This  was 
too  much  for  Keble.  It  touched  him  to  the  qnick,  and 
made  him  feel  that  now  the  time  was  come  when  he 
must  speak  and  act.  By  nature  he  was  no  politician 
nor  controversialist.  He  disliked  the  strife  of  tongues. 
But  he  was  a  man  ;  he  had  deep  religious  convictions  ; 
and  to  change  what  was  ancient  and  catholic  in  the 
Church  Was'to  touch  the  apple  of  his  eye.  When  he 
looked  to  the  old  Tory  party  he  saw  no  help  in  them. 
To  the  aggressive  spirit  they  had  nothing  to  oppose  but 
outworn  Church  and  State  theories.  The  Bishops  too 
were  helpless,  and  spoke  slightingly  of  apostolic  succes- 
sion and  the  Nonjurors.  Was  the  Establishment  prin- 
ciple, then,  the  only  rock  on  which  the  Church  was 
built?  Keble  and  his  young  friends  thought  scorn  of 
that.  This  feeling  first  found  utterance  in  the  assize 
sermon  which  Keble  preached  from  the  University  pul- 
pit, on  Sunday  the  14th  of  July,  1833,  and  afterwards 
published  under  the  title  of  "  National  Apostasy."  "  I 
have  ever  considered  and  kept  the  day,"  says  Dr.  New- 
man, "  as  the  start  of  the  religious  movement  of  1833." 
That  sermon  itself  I  have  not  seen,  but  the  tone  of  it 
may  be  gathered  from  those  lines  in  ,fche  "  Lyra  Apos- 
tolica,"  hi  which  Keble  thus  brands  the  spoliators  :  — 

"  Is  there  no  sound  about  our  altars  heard 
Of  gliding  forms  that  long  have  watched  in  rain 


236  KEBLE. 

For  slumbering  discipline  to  break  her  chain, 
And  aim  the  bolt  by  Theodosius  feared  ? 
'Let  us  depart; '  these  English  souls  are  seared, 
Who  for  one  grasp  of  perishable  gold, 
Would  brave  the  curse  by  holy  men  of  old 
Laid  on  the  robbers  of  the  shrines  they  reared; 
Who  shout  for  joy  to  see  the  ruffian  band 
Come  to  reform,  where  ne'er  they  came  to  pray, 
E'en  where,  unbidden,  seraphs  never  trod. 
Let  us  depart,  and  leave  the  apostate  land 
To  meet  the  rising  whirlwind  as  she  may, 
Without  her  guardian  Angels  and  her  God." 

"  Robbers  of  the  shrines,"  "  the  ruffian  band,  coine 
to  reform,  where  ne'er  they  came  to  pray,"  that  was 
the  trumpet-note  which  rallied  to  the  standard  of  the 
Church  whatever  of  ardor  and  devotion  young  Oxford 
then  contained.  These  virtues  had  never  been  greatly 
countenanced  in  the  Church  of  England.  To  staid 
respectability  it  has  always  been,  and  still  is,  one  of  the 
chief  recommendations  of  that  Church,  that  it  is  an 
embodied  protest  against  what  one  of  its  own  Bishops 
is  said  to  have  denounced  as  "  that  most  dangerous  of 
all  errors  —  enthusiasm."  In  the  last  century  she  had 
cast  out  enthusiasm  in  the  person  of  Wesley ;  at  the 
beginning  of  this,  she  had  barely  tolerated  it  in  the 
Newtons  and  Cecils,  and  other  fathers  of  evangelicism. 
But  here  was  a  fresh  attempt  to  reintroduce  it  in  a  new 
form.  The  young  men  who  were  roused  by  Keble's 
note  of  warning  —  able,  zealous,  resolute  —  flung 
aside  with  disdain  timid  arguments  from  expediency. 
They  longed  to  do  battle  with  that  most  prosaic  of  all 
political  theories,  Whiggery,  and  to  smite  to  the  ground 
the  spirit  of  compromise  which  had  so  long  paralyzed 
the  Church  of  England.  They  set  themselves  to  de- 
fend the  Church  with  weapons  of  ethereal  temper,  and 
they  found  them,  as  they  believed,  in  reviving  her 
claims  to  a  heavenly  origin  and  a  divine  prerogative. 


KEBLE.  237 

That  these  claims  sounded  strange  to  the  ears  even  of 
Churchmen  at  that  time  was  to  these  men  no  stum- 
bling-block—  rather  an  incentive  to  more  fearless  ac- 
tion. True,  such  a  course  shut  them  out  from  prefer- 
ment, hitherto  the  one  recognized  aim  of  the  abler 
English  Churchmen.  But  these  younger  men  were 
content  to  do  without  preferment.  They  had  at  least 
got  beyond  that  kind  of  worldliness.  If  self  still 
clung  to  them  in  any  shape,  it  was  in  that  enlarged  and 
nobler  form  in  which  it  is  one  with  the  glory  of  the 
Church  Catholic  in  all  ages.  The  views  and  aims  of 
the  new  party  soon  took  shape,  in  the  "  Tracts  for  the 
Times."  If  Keble  was  the  starter  of  the  movement, 
John  Henry  Newman  soon  became  its  leader.  In  all 
his  conduct  of  it,  one  of  his  great  aims  was  to  give  to 
the  sentiments  and  views  which  had  originated  with 
Keble  a  consistent  logical  basis.  The  sequel  all  men 
know.  The  inner  working  of  the  movement  may  be 
read  in  the  "  Apologia." 

But  deeply  as  Keble's  heart  was  in  the  Oxford 
movement,  his  place  of  work  was  a  quiet  Hampshire 
parish.  When,  hi  1835,  he  left  the  home  of  his  child- 
hood for  the  vicarage  of  Hursley,  he  found  a  church 
there  not  at  all  to  his  mind.  It  seems  to  have  been  a 
plain,  not  beautiful,  building  of  flint  and  rubble.  He 
determined  to  have  a  new .  one  built  —  new  all  but  the 
tower  —  and  on  this  object  he  employed  the  profits  of 
the  many  editions  of  "  The  Christian  Year ; "  and  when 
the  building  was  finished,  his  friends,  hi  token  of  their 
regard  for  him,  filled  all  the  windows  with  stained 
glass.  In  the  words  of  Sir  J.  P.  Coleridge,  "  Here 
daily  for  the  residue  of  his  life,  until  interrupted  by 
the  failing  health  of  Mrs.  Keble  and  his  own,  did  he 
minister He  had  not,  in  the  popular  sense,  great 


•238  KEBLE. 

gifts  of  delivery ;  his  voice  was  not  powerful,  nor  was 
his  ear  perfect  for  harmony  of  sound ;  but  I  think  it 
was  difficult  not  to  be  impressed  deeply  both  by  his 
reading  and  his  preaching;  when  he  read,  you  saw  that 
he  felt,  and  he  made  you  feel,  that  he  was  the  servant 
of  God,  delivering  his  words  ;  or  leading  you,  as  one 
of  like  infirmities  and  sins  with  your  own,  in  your 
prayer.  When  he  preached  it  was  with  an  affectionate 
simplicity  and  hearty  earnestness  which  were  very 
moving  ;  and  the  sermons  themselves  were  at  all  times 
full  of  that  abundant  Scriptural  knowledge  which  was 
the  most  remarkable  quality  in  him  as  a  divine ;  it  has 
always  seemed  to  me  among  the  most  striking  charac- 
teristics of  "  The  Christian  Year."  It  is  well  known 
what  his  belief  and  feelings  were  in  regard  to  the 
Sacraments.  I  remember  on  one  occasion  when  I  was 
present  at  a  christening  as  godfather,  how  much  he 
affected  me,  when  a  consciousness  of  his  sense  of  the 
grace  conferred  became  present  to  me.  As  he  kept 
the  newly-baptized  infant  for  some  moments  in  his 
arms,  he  gazed  on  it  intently  and  lovingly  with  a  tear 
in  his  eye,  and  apparently  absorbed  in  the  thought 
of  the  child  of  wrath  become  the  child  of  grace. 
Here  his  natural  affections  gave  clearness  and  intensity 
to  his  belief;  the  fondest  mother  never  loved  children 
more  dearly  than  this  childless  man." 

During  the  eventful  years  that  followed  the  Assize 
sermon,  though  his  place  was  still  in  his  country  cure, 
his  sympathies  and  cooperation  were  with  Newman  and 
other  friends  in  Oxford.  He  contributed  some  of  the 
more  important  Tracts ;  poems  of  his  embodying  the 
sentiments  of  the  party  appeared  from  time  to  time, 
and  were  republished  in  the  "  Lyra  Apostolica."  In 
1841,  when  the  famous  No.  90  was  published,  to  the 
icandal  of  the  whole  religious  world,  Keble  was  one 


KEBLE.  239 

of  the  few  who  stood  by  Newman.  What  then  must 
his  feelings  have  been  when  that  younger  friend,  by 
whom  he  had  so  stood,  with  whom  he  had  so  often 
taken  counsel,  abandoned  the  Church  of  England,  and 
sought  refuge  in  that  of  Rome  ?  As  late  as  1863,  a 
friend  of  his,  when  walking  with  him  near  Hursley, 
drew  his  attention  to  a  broken  piece  of  ground — a 
chalk-pit,  as  it  turned  out  —  hard  by.  "  '  Ah  ! '  he 
Baid,  '  that  is  a  sad  place,  connected  with  the  most 
painful  event  of  my  life.'  I  began  to  fear  that  it  had 
been  the  scene  of  some  terrible  accident  which  I  had 
unwittingly  recalled  to  his  mind.  '  It  was  there,'  he 
went  on,  '  that  I  first  knew  for  certain  that  J.  H.  N. 
had  left  us.  We  bad  made  up  our  mind  that  such  an 
event  was  all  but  inevitable ;  and  one  day  I  received  a 
letter  in  his  handwriting.  I  felt  sure  of  what  it  con- 
tained, and  I  carried  it  about  with  me  through  the  day, 
afraid  to  open  it.  At  last  I  got  away  to  that  chalk- 
pit, and  there,  forcing  myself  to  read  the  letter,  I  found 
that  my  forebodings  had  been  too  true ;  it  was  the  an- 
nouncement that  he  was  gone.'  " 

It  seems  natural  to  ask  how  it  came  that,  when 
Newman  left,  Keble  adhered  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. They  were  at  one  in  their  fundamental  princi- 
ples. What,  then,  determined  them  to  go  different 
ways  ?  Of  many  reasons  that  occur  this  one  may  be 
given.  The  two  friends,  though  agreeing  in  their 
principles,  differed  widely  in  mental  structure  and  hi 
natural  temperament.  They  differed  scarcely  less  in 
training  and  circumstances.  Keble,  as  we  have  seen, 
cared  little  for  reasoning,  and  rested  mainly  on  feeling 
and  intuition.  Newman,  on  the  other  hand,  though 
fully  alive  to  these,  added  an  unresting  intellectual  in- 
stinct which  could  not  be  satisfied  without  a  defined 
logical  foundation  for  what  it  instinctively  held.  Not 


240  KEBLE. 

that  Keble  was  without  a  theory.  Taking  from  But- 
ler the  principle  that  probability  is  the  guide  of  life,  he 
applied  it  to  theological  truth.  Butler,  by  a  very 
questionable  process,  had  employed  the  maxim  of 
worldly  prudence,  that  probability  is  the  guide  of  life, 
as  an  argument  for  religion,  but  mainly  in  the  natural 
sphere.  Keble  tried  to  carry  it  on  into  the  sphere  of 
revealed  truth.  The  arguments  which  support  relig- 
ious doctrine,  he  said,  may  be  only  probable  arguments 
judged  intellectually  ;  but  faith  and  love,  being  di- 
rected towards  their  divine  Object,  and  living  in  the 
contemplation  of  that  Object,  convert  these  probable 
arguments  into  certainties.  In  fact,  the  inward  assur- 
ance, which  devout  faith  has  of  the  reality  of  its  Ob- 
ject, makes  doctrines  practically  certain  which  may 
not  be  intellectually  demonstrable.  Newman  tells  us 
that  he  accepted  this  view  so  far,  but,  not  being  fully 
satisfied  with  it,  tried,  in  his  University  sermons  and 
other  works,  to  supplement  it  with  considerations 
of  his  own.  In  time,  however,  he  felt  it  give  way  in 
his  hands,  and  either  abandoned  it,  or  allowed  it  to 
carry  him  elsewhere. 

But  besides  difference  of  mental  structure,  there 
were  other  causes  which  perhaps  determined  the  diver- 
gent courses  of  the  two  friends.  In  the  case  of  Keble, 
whatever  is  most  sacred  and  endearing  in  the  English 
Church  had  surrounded  his  infancy  and  boyhood,  and 
gone  with  him  into  full  manhood.  With  him  loyalty 
to  Home  was  hardly  less  sacred  than  loyalty  to  the 
Faith.  These  two  influences  were  so  intertwined  in 
the  inner  fibres  of  his  nature  that  it  would  have  been 
to  him  very  death  to  separate  them.  Of  Dr.  New- 
man's early  associations  I  know  no  more  than  the  little 
he  has  himself  disclosed.  It  would  appear,  however, 
that  the  Anglican  Church  never  had  so  invincible  a 


KEBLE.  241 

hold  on  him  as  it  had  on  Keble.  By  few  perhaps  has 
it  been  seen  in  so  winning  an  aspect  as  it  wore  in  the 
rural  quiet  of  that  Gloucestershire  parsonage  which 
was  his  early  home. 

When  Newman  was  gone,  on  Keble,  along  with  Dr. 
Pusey,  was  thrown  the  chief  burden  of  the  toil  and 
responsibility  arising  out  of  his  position  in  the  Church. 
Naturally  there  was  great  searching  of  hearts  amongst 
all  the  followers  of  the  Oxford  theology.  Keble  had 
to  give  himself  to  counsel  the  perplexed,  to  strengthen 
the  wavering,  and,  as  far  as  might  be,  to  heal  the 
breaches  that  had  been  made.  Throughout  the  eccle- 
siastical contests  of  the  last  twenty  years,  though  never 
loud  or  obtrusive,  he  yet  took  a  resolute  part  in  main- 
taining the  principles  with  which  his  life  had  been 
identified.  One  last  extract  from  Sir  J.  T.  Coleridge's 
beautiful  sketch  of  his  friend,  will  give  all  that  need 
here  be  said  of  this  portion  of  Keble's  life  :  "  Cir- 
cumstances had  now  placed  him  in  a  position  which  he 
would  never  have  desired  for  himself,  but  from  which  a 
sense  of  duty  compelled  him  not  to  shrink.  Questions 
one  after  another  arose  touching  the  faith  or  the  disci- 
pline of  the  Church,  and  affecting,  as  he  believed,  the 
morals  and  religion  of  the  people.  I  need  not  specify 
the  decisions  of  courts  or  the  proceedings  in  Parlia- 
ment to  which  I  allude  ;  those  whose  consciences  were 
disturbed,  but  who  shrank  from  public  discussion,  and 
those  who  stirred  themselves  in  canvassing  their  pro- 
priety, or  in  counteracting  their  consequences,  equally 
turned  to  him  as  a  comforter  and  adviser  in  private 
and  in  public,  and  he  could  not  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  such 
applications.  It  is  difficult  to  say  with  what  affection- 
ate zeal  and  industry  he  devoted  himself  to  such  cares, 
how  much,  and  at  length  it  is  to  be  feared  how  injuri- 
ously to  his  health,  he  spent  his  time  and  strength  in 
16 


242  KEBLE. 

the  labor  these  brought  on  him.  Many  of  these  in- 
volved, of  course,  questions  of  law,  and  it  was  not 
seldom  that  he  applied  to  me  —  and  thus  I  can  testify 
with  what  care  and  learning  and  acuteness  he  wrote 
upon  them.  Many  of  his  fugitive  pieces  were  thus 
occasioned ;  and  should  these  be,  as  they  ought  to  be, 
collected,  they  will  be  found  to  possess  even  more  than 
temporary  interest.  I  had  occasion  but  lately  to 
refer  to  his  tract  on  'Marriage  with  the  Wife's  Sister,' 
and  I  can  only  hope  that  the  question  will  soon  be 
argued  in  Parliament  with  the  soundness  and  clearness 
which  are  there  employed.  But  even  all  this  does  not 
represent  the  calls  made  on  his  time  by  private  cor- 
respondence, by  personal  visits,  or,  where  it  was  nec- 
essary, by  frequent,  sometimes  by  long  journeys,  taken 
for  the  support  of  religion.  I  need  hardly  say  that  his 
manner  of  doing  all  this  concurred  in  raising  up  for 
him  that  immense  personal  influence  which  he  pos- 
sessed ;  people  found  in  their  best  adviser  the  most 
unpresuming,  unwearied,  affectionate  friend,  and  they 
loved  as  well  as  venerated  him." 

The  appearance  of  Dr.  Newman's  "Apologia"  in 
1864  was  to  Keble  a  great  joy.  Not  that  he  had  ever 
ceased  to  love  Dr.  Newman  with  his  old  affection,  but 
the  separation  of  now  nearly  twenty  years,  and  the 
cause  of  it,  had  been  to  Keble  the  sorest  trial  of  his 
life.  If  the  book  contained  some  things  regarding  the 
Church  of  England  which  must  have  pained  Keble, 
there  was  much  more  in  it  to  gladden  him  ;  not  only 
the  entire  human-heartedness  of  its  tone,  which  made 
its  way  to  the  hearts  even  of  strangers,  but  the  deep 
and  tender  affection  which  it  breathes  to  Dr.  Newman's 
early  friends,  and  the  proof  it  gave  that  Rome  had 
made  no  change  either  in  his  heart  or  head  which 
could  hinder  their  real  sympathy.  The  result  was 


KEBLE.  243 

that  in  September,  1865,  these  three,  Dr.  Newman,  Dr. 
Pusey,  and  Mr.  Keble,  met  under  the  roof  of  Hursley 
vicarage,  and  after  an  interval  of  twenty  years  looked 
on  each  others'  altered  faces.  One  evening  they 
passed  together,  no  more.  It  happened,  however,  that 
at  the  very  time  of  this  meeting,  Mrs.  Keble  had  an 
alarming  attack  of  illness.  Keble  writes  :  "  He  (Dr. 
Pusey)  and  J.  H.  N.  met  here  the  very  day  after  my 
wife's  attack.  Pusey  indeed  was  present  when  the 
attack  began.  Trying  as  it  all  was,  I  was  very  glad  to 
have  them  here,  and  to  sit  by  them  and  listen." 

Soon  after  this,  in  October,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Keble  left 
Hursley  for  Bournemouth,  not  to  return.  Since  the 
close  of  1864,  symptoms  of  declining  health  had  shown 
themselves  in  him  also.  The  long  strain  of  the  duties 
that  accumulated  on  him  in  his  later  years,  with  the 
additional  anxiety  caused  by  Mrs.  Keble's  precarious 
health,  had  been  gradually  wearing  him.  After  only  a 
few  days'  illness  he  was  taken  to  his  rest  on  the  day 
before  Good  Friday,  1866.  In  a  few  weeks  Mrs. 
Keble  followed,  and  now  they  are  laid  side  by  side  in 
Hursley  churchyard. 

The  picture  of  this  saintly  life  will  of  course  in  time 
be  given  to  the  world.  It  is  much  to  be  hoped  that 
the  task  will  be  intrusted  to  some  one  able  to  do  justice 
to  it.  There  are  two  kinds  of  biographies,  and  of  each 
kind  we  have  seen  examples  in  our  own  time.  One  is 
as  a  golden  chalice,  held  up  by  some  wise  hand,  to 
gather  the  earthly  memory  ere  it  is  spilt  on  the  ground. 
The  other  kind  is  as  a  millstone,  hung  by  a  partial,  yet 
ill-judging  friend,  round  the  hero's  neck,  to  plunge  him 
AS  deep  as  possible  in  oblivion.  In  looking  back  on  the 
eminent  men  of  last  generation,  we  have  seen  one  or 
two  lives  of  the  former  stamp,  many  more  of  the  latter. 
Let  us  indulge  the  hope  that  he  who  writes  of  Keble 


244  KEBLE. 

will  take  for  his  model  the  one  or  two  nearly  faultless 
biographies  we  possess,  and  above  all  that  he  will  con- 
dense his  work  within  such  limits  as  shall  commend  it 
not  only  to  partial  friends,  but  also  to  all  thoughtful 
readers. 

By  his  character  and  influence,  Keble  did  more  than 
perhaps  any  other  man  to  bring  about  the  most  wide- 
spread quickening  of  religious  life  which  has  taken  place 
within  the  English  Church  during  the  present  century. 
To  him,  and  the  party  to  which  his  very  name  was  a 
tower  of  strength,  England  owes  two  great  services. 
First,  they,  and  they  preeminently,  have  turned,  and 
are  still  turning,  a  resolute  front  against  the  rationaliz- 
ing spirit,  which  would  pare  down  revelation  to  the 
measure  of  the  human  understanding — cut  away  its 
foundation  in  the  supernatural,  and  virtually  reduce  it 
to  a  moral-  system,  encased  perhaps  in  a  few  historic 
facts.  Secondly,  they  have  introduced  into  the  English 
Church  a  higher  order  of  character,  and  taught  it,  one 
might  almost  say,  new  virtues.  They  have  diffused 
'widely  through  the  clergy  the  contagion  of  their  own 
zeal  and  resoluteness,  their  self-devotion  and  Christian 
chivalry.  These  are  high  services  to  have  rendered  to 
any  country  in  any  age.  But  with  these  acknowledg- 
ments two  regrets  must  mingle :  one,  that  with  their 
defense  of  Christian  truth  they  should  have  mixed  up 
positions  which  are  untenable,  identifying  with  the 
simple  faith  doctrines  which  are  no  part  of  it,  but  rather 
alien  accretions  gathered  by  the  Church  hi  its  progress 
down  the  ages.  The  result  of  this  intermingling  with 
Christianity  things  that  seem  superstitious,  has  been  to 
drive  many  back  into  dislike  and  denial  of  that  which 
is  truly  supernatural.  The  other  cause  of  regret  is,  that 
they  should  have  impaired  the  practical  power  of  their 
example  by  the  exclusive  and  unsympathetic  side  they 


KEBLE.  245 

have  turned  towards  their  fellow- Christians  in  other 
Reformed  communions.  This  exclusiveness  kept  back 
from  the  Oxford  theologians  the  sympathies  of  many 
who,  but  for  this,  would  have  been  strongly  drawn  to 
them  by  their  unworldliness,  fervor,  and  self-devotion. 
Both  errors  have  one  source,  the  confounding  the 
Church  with  the  clergy,  or  rather,  perhaps  I  should 
say,  the  attempt  to  place  the  essence  of  the  Church  in 
a  priestly  organization.  But  though  these  things  must 
be  said,  it  is  not  as  of  a  partisan  that  one  would  like 
most  to  think  of  Keble.  The  circumstances  of  his  time 
forced  him  to  take  a  side,  but  his  nature  was  too  pure 
and  holy  to  find  fit  expression  in  polemics ;  and  the 
memory  of  his  rare  and  saintly  character  will  long  sur- 
vive in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen  the  party  strifes 
in  which  it  was  his  lot  to  mingle. 

Of  his  two  prose  books,  his  edition  of  Hooker's 
works,  which  has,  I  believe,  superseded  every  other, 
and  his  Life  of  the  good  Bishop  Wilson  of  Sodor  and 
Man,  the  author  of  the  "  Sacra  Privata,"  this  is  not  the 
place  to  speak.  But  before  turning  to  "  The  Christian 
Year,"  one  word  must  be  said  about  his  later  book  of 
poetry,  the  "  Lyra  Innocentium."  It  appeared  in  1846, 
at  an  interval  of  nearly  twenty  years  after  "  The  Chris- 
tian Year."  This  collection  of  poems  he  speaks  of  in 
May,  1845,  as  "  a  set  of  things  which  have  been  ac- 
cumulating on  me  for  the  last  three  or  four  years.  It 
has  been  a  great  comfort  to  me  in  the  desolating 
anxiety  of  the  last  two  years,  and  I  wish  I  could  settle 
at  once  on  some  other  such  work."  Children,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  always  been  peculiarly  dear  to  this 
childless  man,  and  he  had  at  first  wished  to  have  made 
these  poems  a  Christian  Year  for  teachers  and  nurses, 
and  others  much  employed  about  children.  In  time  it 


246  KEBLE. 

took  a  different  shape,  and  it  is  perhaps  to  be  regretted 
that  he  had  not  made  it  what  he  first  intended.  Chil- 
dren, their  thoughts  and  ways,  and  the  feelings  which 
they  awaken  in  their  elders,  are  themes  of  quite  ex- 
haustless  interest.  And  yet  how  seldom  has  any  poet 
of  adequate  tenderness  and  depth  approached  that 
mysterious  world  of  childhood!  Wordsworth,  indeed, 
has  felt  it  deeply,  and  expressed  it  in  some  of  his  most 
exquisite  poems :  — 

"  0  dearest,  dearest  boy,  my  heart 

For  better  lore  would  seldom  yearn, 
Gould  I  but  teach  the  hundredth  part 
Of  what  from  thee  I  learn." 

This  verse  from  Wordsworth  is  indeed  the  motto  chosen 
by  Keble  for  his  "  Lyra  Innocentium." 

Of  the  poems  on  children  which  the  "  Lyra  "  contains, 
I  am  free  to  confess  that  they  approach  their  subject 
too  exclusively  from  the  Church  side  for  general  in- 
terest. "Looking  Westward,"  "The  Bird's  Nest," 
"Bereavement,"  "The  Manna  Gatherers,"  are  fine 
lyrics,  equal  perhaps  to  most  in  "  The  Christian  Year." 
But  there  is  no  thought  in  the  "  Lyra  Innocentium  " 
about  childhood  that  comes  near  that  earlier  strain  in 
which  the  poet,  as  he  looks  on  children  ranged  to  re- 
ceive their  first  lessons  in  religion,  bursts  forth  — 

"  O !  say  not,  dream  not,  heavenly  notes 

To  childish  ears  are  vain, 
That  the  young  mind  at  random  floats, 
And  cannot  reach  the  strain. 

"  Dim  or  unheard,  the  words  may  fall, 

And  yet  the  heaven-taught  mind 
May  learn  the  sacred  air,  and  all 
The  harmony  unwind. 

"  Was  not  our  Lord  a  little  child, 

Taught  by  degrees  to  pray, 

By  father  dear  and  mother  mild 

Instructed  day  by  day?  " 


KEBLE.  247 

Then,  after  an  interval,  he  goes  on  — 

"  Each  little  voice  in  turn 
Some  glorious  truth  proclaims, 
What  sages  would  have  died  to  learn, 
Now  taught  by  cottage  dames. 

"  And  if  some  tones  be  false  or  low, 

What  are  all  prayers  beneath 
But  cries  of  babes  that  cannot  know 
Half  the  deep  thought  they  breathe?  " 

Whatever  the  reason  may  be,  certainly  the  later 
book  does  not  strike  home  to  the  universal  heart  as 
"  The  Christian  Year "  did,  and  it  never  has  attained 
anything  like  the  same  popularity. 

The  reference  to  ecclesiastical  usages,  not  known  to 
the  many,  and  the  more  pronounced  High  Church  feel- 
ing which  it  embodies,  will  partly  account  for  this.  It 
is  certainly  much  more  restricted  and  less  catholic  in 
its  range.  Partly  also  it  may  be  that  the  fountain  of 
inspiration  did  not  flow  so  fully  as  in  earlier  years.  It 
may  not  have  been  that  time  had  chilled  it ;  but  other 
duties  and  cares  had  come  thick  upon  him  since  his  po- 
etic spring-time.  Especially  the  polemical  stir  in  which 
his  share  in  the  Oxford  movement  had  involved  him, 
and  the  anxiety  in  the  midst  of  which  the  "  Lyra  Inno- 
centium "  was  composed,  must  have  left  little  of  that 
leisure  either  of  time  or  heart  which  is  necessary  for  a 
free-flowing  minstrelsy. 

It  may  help  to  the  fuller  understanding  of  "  The 
v.  Christian  Year,"  if  we  turn  for  a  moment  to  Keble's 
theory  of  poetry.  He  has  set  it  forth  at  large  in 
"  Praelections  on  Poetry,"  more  shortly  in  his  review  of 
the  "  Life  of  Scott,"  which,  once  famous  in  Oxford,  is  al- 
most unknown  to  the  present  generation.  That  review, 
which  first  appeared  in  the  "  British  Critic,"  is  well  wor- 
thy of  being  republished,  both  from  the  insight  it  gives 


248  KEBLE. 

into  Keble's  character,  and  views  on  poetry,  and  also  as 
a  study  of  Scott  by  a  reverential  admirer,  in  many  things 
very  unlike  himself.  The  theory  is  that  poetry  is  the 
natural  relief  of  minds  burdened  by  some  engrossing 
idea,  or  strong  emotion,  or  ruling  taste,  or  imaginative 
regret,  which  from  some  cause  or  other  they  are  kept 
from  directly  indulging.  Rhythm  and  metrical  form 
serve  to  regulate  and  restrain,  while  they  express  those 
strong  or  deep  emotions,  "  which  need  relief,  but  cannot 
endure  publicity."  They  are  at  once  "  vent  for  eager 
feelings  and  a  veil  to  draw  over  them.  For  the  utter- 
ance of  high  or  tender  feeling  controlled  and  modified 
by  a  certain  reserve  is  the  very  soul  of  poetry." 

On  this  principle  Keble  founds  what  he  regards  as 
an  essential  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary 
poets.  Primary  poets  are  they  who  are  driven  by  some 
overmastering  enthusiasm,  by  passionate  devotion  to 
some  range  of  objects,  or  line  of  thought,  or  aspect  of 
life  or  nature,  to  utter  their  feelings  in  song.  They 
sing,  because  they  cannot  help  it.  There  is  a  melody 
within  them  which  will  out,  a  fire  in  their  blood  which 
cannot  be  suppressed.  This  is  the  true  poetic  /xavt'a  of 
which  Plato  speaks.  Secondary  poets  are  not  urged 
to  poetry  by  any  such  overflowing  sentiment ;  but 
learning,  admiration  of  great  masters,  choice,  and  a  cer- 
tain literary  turn,  have  made  them  poetic  artists.  They 
were  not  born,  but  being  possessed  of  a  certain  eu^u'a, 
aave  made  themselves  poets.  Of  the  former  kind  are 
Homer,  Lucretius,  Shakespeare,  Burns,  Scott ;  of  the 
latter,  Euripides,  Dryden,  Milton.  This  view,  if  it  be 
somewhat  too  narrow  a  basis  on  which  to  found  a  com- 
prehensive theory  of  poetry,  certainly  does  lay  hold  of 
one  side  of  the  truth  generally  overlooked.  In  our 
own  day,  how  many  are  there !  possessed  of  a  large 
measure  of  artistic  faculty.,  able  to  treat  poetically  any* 


KEBLE.  249 

thing  they  take  up,  wanting  only  in  one  thing,  —  a 
subject  which  absorbs  their  interest.  There  is  nothing 
in  human  life,  or  history,  or  nature,  which  they  have 
made  peculiarly  their  own,  nothing  about  which  they 
know  more  intimately,  than  the  host  of  educated  men. 
And  so,  though  with  a  "  skill  in  composition  and  felicity 
of  language  "  greater  than  many  poets  possess,  they 
are  still  felt  to  be  literary  men  rather  than  poets,  be- 
cause they  have  no  overmastering  impulse,  no  divine 
enthusiasm,  driving  them  to  seek  relief  in  song. 

If  we  apply  to  himself  the  author's  own  canon,  "  The 
Christian  Year "  would  place  him  in  the  rank  of  pri- 
mary poets.  Not  that  it  displays  anything  like  the  high- 
est artistic  faculty,  but  because  it  evidently  flows  from 
a  native  spring  of  inspiration.  As  far  as  it  goes,  it  is 
genuine  poetry.  Tho  author  sings,  in  a  strain  of  his 
own,  of  the  things  he  has  known  and  felt  and  loved. 
Beneath  all  the  layers  that  early  education  and  Oxford 
training  have  superimposed,  there  is  felt  to  be  a  glow 
of  internal  heat  not  derived  from  these. 

To  English  Church  people  without  number  "  The 
Christian  Year"  has  long  been  not  only  a  cherished 
classic,  but  a  sacred  book,  which  they  place  beside  their 
Bible  and  their  Prayer-Book.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
generation  of  literary  young  men  has  grown  up,  who, 
having  had  their  tastes  formed  on  a  newer,  more  highly 
spiced  style  of  poetry,  scarcely  know  "  The  Christian 
Year,"  and,  if  they  knew  it,  would  turn  away  from 
what  seemed  to  them  its  meagre  literary  merit.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  say  anything  regarding  it  which 
would  not  seem  faint  praise  to  the  one  class,  and  exag- 
geration to  the  other.  But  without  trying  to  meet  the 
views  of  either,  it  is  worth  while  to  study  the  poem  for 
ourselves. 


250  KEBLE. 

It  cannot  be  too  clearly  kept  in  view  that  Keble 
is  not  a  hymn  writer,  and  that  "  The  Christian  Year  " 
is  not  a  collection  of  hymns.  Those  who  have  coma 
to  it  expecting  to  find  genuine  hymns,  will  turn  away 
hi  disappointment.  They  will  seek  in  vain  for  any- 
thing of  the  directness,  the  fervor,  the  simplicity,  the 
buoyancy  of  devotion  which  have  delighted  them  in 
Charles  Wesley.  But  to  demand  this  is  to  mistake 
the  nature  and  form  of  Keble's  poems.  There  is  all 
the  difference  between  them  and  Charles  Wesley's, 
that  there  is  between  meditation  on  the  one  hand,  and 
prayer,  or  thanksgiving,  or  praise  on  the  other.  Indeed, 
so  little  did  Keble's  genius  fit  him  for  hymn  writing, 
that  in  his  two  poems  which  are  intended  to  be  hymns 
—  those  for  the  morning  and  the  evening  —  the  open- 
ing in  either  case  is  a  description  of  natural  facts, 
wholly  unsuited  to  hymn  purposes.  And  so  when 
these  two  poems  are  adopted  into  hymn  collections,  as 
they  often  are,  a  mere  selection  of  certain  stanzas  from 
each  is  all  that  has  been  found  possible.  Besides  these 
two,  there  is  no  other  poem  in  the  book,  any  large 
part  of  which  can  be  used  as  a  hymn.  For  they  are 
all  lyrical  religious  meditations,  not  hymns  at  all.  Yet 
true  though  this  is,  every  here  and  there,  out  of  the 
midst  of  the  reflections,  there  does  flash  a  verse  of 
fervid  emotion  and  direct  heart-appeal  to  God,  which 
is  quite  hymnal  in  character.  These  occasional  bursts 
are  among  the  highest  beauties  of  "  The  Christian 
Year."  Yet  they  are  neither  so  frequent  nor  so  long- 
sustained  as  to  change  the  prevailingly  meditative  cast 
of  the  whole  book.  It  is  owing  perhaps  to  this  preva- 
lence of  meditation,  and  that  often  of  a  refined  and 
subtle  kind,  that  "  The  Christian  Year  "  is  not,  as  we 
have  often  heard  said,  so  well  adapted  as  some  simpler, 
less  poetical  collections,  to  be  read  by  the  sick-bed  to 


KEBLE.  251 

the  feint  and  weak.  Unless  long  familiarity  has  made 
it  easy,  it  requires  more  thought  and  mental  elasticity 
to  follow  it,  than  the  sick  for  the  most  part  can  supply. 
Yet  it  contains  single  verses,  many,  though  not  whole 
poems,  which  will  come  home  full  of  consolation  to 
any,  even  the  weakest  spirit.  On  the  whole,  however, 
it  is  not  with  Charles  Wesley,  or  any  of  the  hymn 
writers  of  this  or  the  past  century,  nor  even  with 
Cowper  in  his  hymns  or  his  larger  poems,  that  Keble 
should  be  compared.  In  outward  form,  and  not  a 
little  in  inward  spirit,  the  religious  poets  to  whom  he 
bears  the  strongest  likeness  are  Henry  Vaughan  and 
George  Herbert,  both  of  the  seventeenth  century.  A 
comparison  with  these  would  be  interesting,  were  this 
the  place  for  it,  but  at  present  I  must  confine  myself 
to  the  consideration  of  the  special  characteristics  of 
«  The  Christian  Year." 

These  seem  to  be,  first,  a  tone  of  religious  feel- 
ing, fresh,  deep,  and  tender,  beyond  what  was  common 
even  among  religious  men  in  the  author's  day,  perhaps 
in  any  day ;  secondly,  great  intensity  and  tenderness 
of  home  affection ;  thirdly,  a  shy  and  delicate  reserve, 
which  loved  quiet  paths  and  shunned  publicity  ; 
fourthly,  a  pure  love  of  nature,  and  a  spiritual  eye  to 
read  nature's  symbolism. 

"  He  sang  of  love,  with  quiet  blending, 
Slow  to  begin,  and  never  ending, 
Of  serious  faith,  and  inward  glee." 

1.  Its  peculiar  tone  of  religious  feeling. 

It  embodies  deep  and  tender  religious  sentiment  in 
a  form  which  is  old,  and  yet  new.  Our  best  critic  has 
lately  told  us  that  "  the  inevitable  business  for  the 
modern  poet,  as  it  was  for  the  Greek  poet  in  the  days 
of  Pericles,  is  to  interpret  human  life  afreshr  and  find 
a  new  spiritual  basis  for  it."  Keble  did  not  think  so. 


252  KEBLE. 

He  was  content  with  the  interpretation  which  Chris- 
tianity has  put  on  human  life,  and  wished  only  to  read 
man  and  nature  as  far  as  he  might,  in  this  light. 
Goethe,  I  suppose,  is  the  great  modern  instance  of  a 
poet  who  has  tried  "  to  give  a  moral  interpretation  of 
man  and  the  world  from  an  independent  point  of  view." 
Of  course  it  would  be  simply  ridiculous  for  a  moment 
to  place  Keble  for  poetic  power  in  comparison  with 
such  an  one  as  Goethe.  But,  disparate  as  their  powers 
are,  Keble  with  limited  faculty,  just  by  virtue  of  his 
having  accepted  the  Christian  interpretation,  while  the 
other  rejected  it,  has  spoken,  if  one  may  venture  to 
say  so,  more  words  that  satisfy  man's  deepest  yearn- 
ings, that  sink  into  those  simple  places  of  the  heart 
which  lie  beneath  all  culture,  than  Goethe  with  all  his 
world-width  has  done.  The  religion  which  Keble  laid 
to  heart,  and  lived  by,  would  not  seem  to  have  come 
to  him  through  prolonged  spiritual  conflicts,  as  did 
that  of  the  great  Puritans ;  neither  had  he  reached  it 
by  laborious  critical  processes,  as  modern  philosophers 
would  have  us  do.  He  had  learned  it  first  at  his 
mother's  knee.  Then  it  was  confirmed  and  system- 
atized by  the  daily  teaching  of  the  Church  hie  so  de- 
voutly loved.  Time  brought  to  it  additions  from  va- 
rious quarters,  but  no  break.  The  powerful  influences 
of  his  University,  direct  and  indirect,  chivalry  reawak- 
ening in  Scott's  poetry,  meditative  depth  in  Words- 
worth, these  all  melted  naturally  into  his  primal  faith, 
and  combined  with  the  general  tendencies  of  the  time 
to  carry  him  in  spirit  back  to  those  older  ages  where 
his  imagination  found  ampler  range,  his  devotion  se- 
verer, more  self-denying  virtues  than  modern  life  en- 
genders. Out  of  that  great  past  he  brought  some  of 
Jae  sterner  stuff  of  which  the  martyrs  were  made,  and 
introduced  it  like  iron  into  the  blood  of  modern  relig- 


KEBLE.  253  , 

ious  feeling.  A  poet  who  received  all  these  influ- 
ences into  himself,  and  vitalized  them,  could  not  but 
make  the  old  new.  For  not  till  the  authoritative  had 
been  inwardly  transfused  into  the  moral  and  spiritual 
did  it  for  the  most  part  find  vent  in  his  poetry.  There 
are  exceptions  to  this,  which  form  what  may  be  set 
down  as  the  shortcomings  of  "The  Christian  Year." 
But  in  all  its  finer,  more  vital  poems,  the  catholic  faith 
has  become  personal,  rests  frankly  on  intuition  and 
experience,  as  frankly  as  the  vaguer,  more  impersonal 
meditations  of  greater  poets. 

"  The  eye  in  smiles  may  wander  round, 

Caught  by  earth's  shadows  as  they  fleet, 
But  for  the  soul  no  home  is  found, 
Save  Him  who  made  it,  meet." 

Or  again,  the  well-known  — 

"  Abide  with  me  from  morn  till  eve, 
For  without  Thee  I  cannot  live; 
Abide  with  me  when  night  is  nigh, 
For  without  Thee  I  dare  not  die." 

Or  again  — 

"  Who  loves  the  Lord  aright, 
No  soul  of  man  can  worthless  find  ; 
All  will  be  precious  in  his  sight, 
Since  Christ  on  all  hath  shined." 

It  is  the  many  words,  simple  yet  deep,  devoutly 
Christian  yet  intensely  human,  like  these,  scattered 
throughout  its  pages,  that  have  endeared  "  The  Chris- 
tian Year"  to  countless  hearts  within  the  English 
Church,  and  to  many  a  heart  beyond  it  The  new 
elements  in  the  book  are  perhaps  these  —  first,  it 
translates  religious  sentiment  out  of  the  ancient  alid 
exclusively  Hebrew  dialect  into  the  language  of  modern 
feeling.  Hitherto  English  devotional  poets,  with  the 
exception  perhaps  of  Cowper,  in  some  passages,  had 
adhered  rigorously  to  the  Scriptural  imagery  and 


254  KEBLE. 

. 

phraseology.  This,  besides  immensely  limiting  their 
range,  made  their  words  often  fall  wide  of  modern 
experience.  Keble  took  the  thoughts  and  sentiments 
of  which  men  at  the  present  day  are  conscious,  ex- 
pressed them  in  fitting  modern  words,  and  transfused 
into  them  the  Christian  spirit.  Secondly,  there  is 
visible  in  him,  first  perhaps  of  his  contemporaries,  — 
that  which  seems  the  best  characteristic  of  modern 
religion,  —  combined  with  devout  reverence  for  the 
person  of  our  Lord,  a  closer,  more  personal  love  to 
Him  as  to  a  living  friend.  There  were  no  doubt  rare 
exceptions  here  and  there,  but,  generally  speaking, 
religious  men  before  spoke  of  our  Lord  in  a  more 
distant  way,  as  one  holding  the  central  place  rather  in 
a  dogmatic  system  than  in  the  devout  affections.  The 
best  men  of  our  own  time  have  gone  beyond  this. 
The  Lord  of  the  Gospels,  in  his  Divine  humanity,  has 
come  closer  to  their  hearts,  and  made  Himself  known 
in  a  more  intimate  and  endearing  way.  In  none 
perhaps  was  this  change  of  feeling  earlier  seen,  or 
more  strongly  marked,  than  in  Keble.  Thirdly,  there 
is  the  close  and  abundant  knowledge  of  Scripture,  with 
a  fine  and  delicate  feeling  for  the  beauty  of  its  language. 
Without  confining  himself  to  the  imagery  or  language 
of  the  Bible,  he  everywhere  shows  his  intimacy  with  it, 
and  interweaves  its  words  and  half  sentences,  its  scenes 
and  imagery  naturally  and  gracefully  with  his  own. 

These  are  some  of  the  more  catholic  notes  of  the 
book  which  have  won  for  it  a  place  in  the  affections 
of  Christians  of  every  communion.  This  depth  of 
catholic  religious  sentiment,  it  is,  no  doubt,  which  is  its 
chief  and  most  valuable  characteristic.  From  this 
some  may  be  ready  to  draw  an  argument  for  Christian 
morality  disjoined  from  Christian  doctrine,  or  for  some 
all-embracing  religion  which  would  comprehend  what- 


KEBLE.  255 

ever  the  various  churches  agree  in,  discarding  all  in 
which  they  differ.  What  that  residuum  exactly  is,  no 
one  has  yet  stated.  But  before  drawing  such  an 
argument  from  "The  Christian  Year,"  it  may  be  as 
well  to  ask  whether  that  book  would  have  been  so 
charged  with  devout  Christian  sentiment  if  its  author 
had  not  held  with  all  his  heart  those  doctrinal  truths 
which  were  in  him  the  roots  out  of  which  that  senti- 
ment grew,  but  which  many  now  wish  to  get  rid  of  ? 
If  we  love  the  consummate  flower,  it  might  be  as  well 
not  to  begin  by  cutting  away  the  root 

There  is,  however,  another  side  on  which  "  The 
Christian  Year  "  is  less  catholic  in  its  character.  This, 
which  may  be  called  its  ecclesiastical  side,  is  inherent 
in  the  very  form  of  the  book.  A  poem  for  each  Sun- 
day in  the  year  would  be  welcome  to  very  many,  but 
then  what  is  to  determine  the  subject  of  each  Sunday's 
poem  ?  A  chance  verse  or  phrase  in  the  Gospel  for 
the  day,  as  this  is  given  in  the  Prayer-Book,  is  hardly 
a  catholic  or  universal  ground  for  fixing  the  subject. 
Again,  Christmas,  Good  Friday,  Easter-day,  Whitsun- 
day, have  of  course  a  catholic  meaning,  because  these 
days,  though  not  observed  by  all  churches,  are  yet 
memorials  of  the  sacred  facts  by  which  all  Christians 
live.  But  the  lesser  Saints'  Days,  Circumcision,  Puri- 
fication, as  well  as  the  occasional  services,  have  a  local 
and  temporary,  not  a  universal  import.  Accordingly,  a 
perusal  of  the  poems  suggests  what  the  preface  to  them 
confirms,  that  they  did  not  all  flow  off  from  a  free 
spontaneous  inspiration,  awakened  by  the  thought 
natural  to  each  day,  but  that  a  good  number  were 
either  poems  previously  composed  and  afterwards 
adapted  to  some  particular  Sunday,  or  written  as  it 
were  to  order  after  the  thought  of  rounding  "  The 
Christian  Year  "  had  arisen.  So  clear  does  this  seem 


256  KEBLE. 

that  it  would  not  be  hard  to  go  through  the  several 
poems  and  lay  finger  here  on  the  spontaneous  effusions, 
there  on  those  of  more  labored  manufacture.  The 
former  flow  from  the  first  verse  to  the  last  lucid  in 
thought,  simple  and  almost  faultless  in  diction ;  no 
break  in  the  sense,  no  obscurity;  seldom  any  harsh- 
ness or  poverty  in  the  diction.  The  others  are  imper- 
fect in  rhythm  and  language,  defaced  by  the  conven- 
tionalities of  poetic  diction,  frequently  obscure  or 
artificial,  the  thread  of  thought  broken  or  hard  to 
catch.  The  one  set  are  like  mountain  streams,  that 
run  down  the  hillside  in  sunshine,  clear  and  bright 
from  end  to  end,  the  other  are  like  streams  that  find 
their  way  through  difficult  places,  often  hidden  under- 
ground or  buried  in  heaps  of  stones.  Yet  even  the 
most  defective  of  them  come  forth  to  light  in  some 
single  verse  of  profound  thought  or  tender  feeling,  so 
well  expressed  as  to  make  the  reader  willingly  forgive 
for  that  one  gleam  the  imperfection  of  the  rest 

2.  Home-feeling. 

The  next  quality  I  would  notice  is  the  deep  tone 
of  home  affection  which  pervades  these  poems.  This, 
perhaps  as  much  as  anything,  has  endeared  them  to  his 
home-loving  countrymen.  Such  is  that  feeling  for  an 
ancient  home  breathed  in  — 

"  Since  all  that  is  not  Heaven  must  fade, 
Light  be  the  hand  of  Ruin  laid 

Upon  the  home  I  love: 
With  lulling  spell  let  soft  Decay 
Steal  on,  and  spare  the  giant  sway 

The  crash  of  tower  and  grove. 

"  Far  opening  down  some  woodland  deep 
In  their  own  quiet  glade  should  sleep 

The  relics  dear  to  thought, 
And  wild-flower  wreaths  from  side  to  side 
Their  waving  tracery  hang,  to  hide 

What  ruthless  Time  has  wrought" 


KEBLE.  257, 

Again,  the  hymn  for  St.  Andrew's  Day  is  so  well 
known  and  loved  as  hardly  to  need  quoting.  Every 
line  of  it  is  instinct  with  simple  pure  affection,  yet 
never,  one  might  think,  so  deeply  felt  or  so  well  ex- 
pressed as  here :  — 

"  When  brothers  part  for  manhood's  race, 
What  gift  may  most  endearing  prove 
To  keep  fond  memory  in  her  place, 
And  certify  a  brother's  love  ? 

"  No  fading  frail  memorial  give 

To  soothe  his  soul  when  thou  art  gone, 
But  wreaths  of  hope  for  aye  to  live, 

And  thoughts  of  good  together  done." 

Besides  the  more  obvious  allusions  to  the  household 
charities,  there  are  many  delicate,  more  reserved 
touches  on  the  same  chord.  Such  is  the  — 

"  I  cannot  paint  to  Memory's  eye 

The  scene,  the  glance,  I  dearest  love  — 
Unchanged  themselves,  in  me  they  die, 
Or  faint,  or  false,  their  shadows  prove. 

"  Meanwhile,  if  over  sea  or  sky 

Some  tender  lights  unnoticed  fleet, 
Or  on  loved  features  dawn  and  die, 
Unread,  to  us,  their  lesson  sweet  ; 

Yet  are  there  saddening  sights  around, 
Which  Heaven,  in  mercy,  spares  us  too." 

But  there  is  no  need  to  go  on  with  quotations.  Many 
more  such  passages  will  occur  to  every  reader.  High 
education  and  refined  thought  in  him  had  not  weakened, 
but  only  made  more  pure  and  intense,  natural  affection. 
Yet  in  all  the  tenderness  there  is  no  trace  of  effemi- 
nacy. True,  the  woman's  heart  everywhere  shows  itself. 
But  as  it  has  been  said  that  in  the  countenance  of  most 
men  of  genius  there  is  something  of  a  womanly  ex- 
pression not  seen  in  the  faces  of  other  men,  so  it  is 
17 


258  KEBLE. 

distinctive  of  true  poetic  temper  that  it  ever  carries  the 
woman's  heart  within  the  man's.  And  certainly,  of  no 
poet's  heart  does  this  hold  more  truly  than  of  Keble's. 
They,  however,  must  be  but  blind  critics,  insensible 
to  the  finer  pathos  of  human  life,  who  have  on  this 
account  called  Keble's  poetry  "  effeminate."  The 
woman's  heart  in  him  is  blended  with  the  martyr's 
courage.  Hardly  any  modern  poetry  breathes  so  firm 
self-control,  so  fixed  yet  calm  resolve,  so  stern  self- 
denial.  If  these  be  qualities  that  can  consist  with 
effeminacy,  then  Keble's  poetry  may  be  allowed  to 
pass  for  effeminate.  But  those  who  bring  this  charge 
against  it,  misled,  it  may  be,  by  the  loud  bluster  that 
passes  with  many  for  manliness,  seem  to  forget  that  the 
bravest  and  most  high-souled  manhood  is  also  the  gen- 
tlest and  most  tender  hearted1;  that,  according  to  the 
saying,  "  A  man  is  never  so  much  a  man  as  when  he 
becomes  most  in  heart  a  child." 

3.  Reserve. 

This  naturally  leads  on  to  the  notice  of  another 
characteristic  of  this  poetry  —  the  fine  reserve,  which 
does  not  publish  aloud,  but  only  delicately  hints,  its 
deeper  feelings.  It  was  an  intrinsic  part  of  Keble's 
nature  to  shrink  from  obtruding  himself,  to  dislike  dis- 
play,— 

"  To  love  the  sober  shade 
More  than  the  laughing  light." 

And  one  object  he  had  in  publishing  "  The  Christian 
Year  "  was  the  hope  that  it  might  supply  a  sober  stand- 
ard of  devotional  feeling,  in  unison  with  that  presented 
by  the  Prayer-Book.  The  time,  he  thought,  was  one 
of  unbounded  curiosity  and  morbid  craving  for  excite- 
ment, symptoms  which  have  not  abated  during  the 
forty  years  since  Keble  so  wrote.  He  wished,  as  far 
as  might  be,  to  supply  some  antidote  to  these  tend- 


KEBLE.  259 

encies.  Again,  modern  thought  has,  as  all  know, 
turned  in  upon  itself,  and  discovered  a  whole  internal 
world  of  reflections  and  sensibilities  hardly  expressed 
in  the  older  literature.  Keble  so  far  shared  this  tend- 
ency with  his  contemporaries.  But  he  set  himself 
not  to  feed  and  pamper  it,  but  to  direct,  to  sober,  and 
to  brace  it,  by  bringing  it  into  the  presence  of  realities 
higher  than  itself.  , 

This  feeling  of  delicate  reserve,  sobered  and  strength- 
ened by  Christian  thought,  comes  out  hi  many  of  the 
poems,  in  none  perhaps  more  than  in  the  one  which 
contains  these  stanzas  :  — 

"  E'en  human  Love  will  shrink  from  sight 

Here  in  the  coarse  rude  earth : 
How  then  should  rash  intruding  glance 
Break  in  upon  her  sacred  trance 

Who  boasts  a  heavenly  birth? 

"  So  still  and  secret  is  her  growth, 

Ever  the  truest  heart, 
Where  deepest  strikes  her  kindly  root 
For  hope  or  joy,  for  flower  or  fruit, 

Least  knows  its  happy  part. 

"  God  only,  and  good  angels,  look 

Behind  the  blissful  screen  — 

As  when,  triumphant  o'er  his  woes, 

The  Son  of  God  by  moonlight  rose, 

By  all  but  Heaven  unseen." 

I  would  not  pause  on  verbal  criticisms,  —  only  the  last 
line  of  the  second  stanza  here  is  one  of  many  instances 
in  which  the  beauty  of  the  finest  thoughts  is  marred 
by  the  admission  of  some  hackneyed  conventional 
phrase.  Otherwise,  these  stanzas,  as  well  as  the  whole 
poem  in  which  they  occur,  are  in  Keble's  finest  and 
most  native  vein.  In  keeping  with  the  feeling  breathed 
by  these  lines  is  another  which  should  be  noted.  As 
he  keeps  his  own  deepest  feelings  under  a  close  veil  of 


260  KEBLE. 

reserve,  so  he  loves  best  the  virtues  and  the  characters 
which  are  least  obtrusive,  and  generally  get  least  praise. 
Things  which  the  world  least  recognizes,  for  these  he 
reserves  his  heart's  best  sympathy.  For  the  loud,  the 
successful,  the  caressed,  he  has  no  word  but  perhaps 
one  of  admonition.  It  is  the  poor,  the  bowed  down, 
the  lonely,  the  forsaken,  who  draw  out  his  deepest  ten- 
derness. And  what  makes  this  the  nobler  in  Keble  is, 
that  it  does  not  seem  to  come  from  the  principle  of 
hand  ignarus  mali,  but  rather  from  pure  strength  of 
Christian  sympathy.  The  traits  of  character  for  which 
he  has  the  keenest  eye,  the  virtues  on  which  he  dwells 
most  lovingly,  are  those  which  men  in  general  take 
least  note  of.  Those  who  belong  to  "  the  nameless 
family  of  God  "  kindle  in  him  a  deep  enthusiasm,  such 
as  most  poets  have  reserved  for  the  earth's  great  he- 
roes. Thus,  in  one  of  his  finest  passages,  after  con- 
trasting those  Christians  who  live  in  the  "  green  earth " 
and  under  the  "  open  sky  "  of  the  country,  with  those 
whose  lot  is  cast  in  the  streets  and  stifling  alleys  of  the 
crowded  city,  he  bursts  forth  — 

"  But  Love's  a  flower  that  will  not  die 

For  lack  of  leafy  screen, 
And  Christian  Hope  can  cheer  the  eye 

That  ne'er  saw  vernal  green ; 
Then  be  ye  sure  that  Love  can  bless 
E'en  in  this  crowded  loneliness, 
Where  ever-moving  myriads  seem  to  say, 
Go  —  thou  art  nought  to  us,  nor  we  to  thee  —  away! 

"  There  are  in  this  loud  stunning  tide 

Of  human  care  and  crime, 
With  whom  the  melodies  abide 

Of  th'  everlasting  chime ; 
Who  carry  music  in  their  heart 
Through  dusty  lane  and  wrangling  mart, 
Plying  their  daily  task  with  busier  feet, 
Because  their  secret  souls  a  holy  strain  repeat." 


KEBLE.  261 

And  as  is  the  inward  tone  of  feeling,  so  is  its  out- 
ward expression,  chastened  and  subdued.  There  is  no 
gorgeousness  of  coloring,  no  stunning  sound,  no  highly 
spiced  phrase  or  metaphor.  From  what  have  been  the 
chief  attractions  of  much  poetry  popular  since  his  day, 
—  scarlet  hues  and  blare  of  trumpets,  staring  metaphors 
and  metaphysical  enigmas,  he  turned  instinctively.  He 
seemed  to  say  to  these, — 

"Farewell:  for  one  short  life  we  part: 
I  rather  woo  the  soothing  art, 
Which  only  souls  in  sufferings  tried 
Bear  to  their  suffering  brethren's  side." 

Those  who  have  called  other  parts  of  Keble  effeminate, 
might  perhaps  call  this  ascetic.  If  it  is  so,  it  is  an 
asceticism  in  harmony  with  true  Christianity,  and  with 
the  sober  wisdom  that  comes  from  life's  experience. 

4.  Descriptions  of  Nature. 

Much  has  been  said  of  Keble's  eye  for  nature.  His 
admirers  perhaps  exaggerate  it,  his  depredators  as  much 
underrate  it.  He  certainly  shared  largely  in  that  feel- 
ing about  the  visible  world,  so  identified  with  Words- 
worth that  it  is  now  called  Wordsworthian,  —  that 
feeling  which  more  than  any  other  marks  the  direction 
in  which  modern  imagination  has  enlarged  and  deep- 
ened. The  appearances  of  nature  furnish  Keble  with 
the  framework  in  which  most  of  his  lyrics  are  set,  the 
mould  in  which  they  are  cast.  Some  whole  poems,  as 
the  one  beginning  — 

"  Lessons  sweet  of  spring  returning," 

are  little  more  than  descriptions  of  some  scene  in 
nature.  Many  more  take  some  natural  appearance 
and  make  it  the  symbol  of  a  spiritual  truth.  Two 
small  rills,  born  apart  and  afterwards  blending  in  one 
large  stream,  are  likened  to  two  separate  prayers  unit- 


262  KEBLE. 

ing  to  bring  about  some  great  result  The  autumn 
clouds,  mantling  round  the  sun  for  love,  suggest  that 
love  is  life's  only  sign.  The  robin  singing  unweariedly 
in  the  bleak  November  wind,  suggests  a  lesson  of  con- 
tent— 

"  Rather  in  all  to  be  resigned  than  blest." 

These  and  many  more  are  the  natural  appearances 
which,  some  by  resemblance,  some  by  contrast,  furnish 
him  with  key-notes  to  religious  meditation.  In  many 
you  feel  at  once  that  the  poet  has  struck  a  true  note, 
one  which  will  be  owned  by  the  universal  imagination, 
wherever  that  faculty  is  sufficiently  cultivated  to  be 
alive  to  it.  In  some  you  feel  more  doubtful,  —  the 
analogy  appears  to  be  somewhat  more  faint  or  far- 
fetched. In  others  you  seem  to  see  clearly  that  the 
resemblance  is  arbitrary  and  capricious,  a  work  of  the 
mere  fancy,  not  of  the  genuine  imagination.  An  in- 
stance of  the  last  kind  has  been  severely  commented  on 
by  a  contemporary  critic  who,  on  the  strength  of  some 
doubtful  analogies  which  occur  in  Keble's  poems,  has 
voted  him  no  poet.  This  critic  specially  comments  on 
one  poem,  in  which  the  moon  is  made  a  symbol  of  the 
Church,  the  stars  are  made  symbols  of  saints  in  heaven, 
and  the  trees  hi  Eden  of  saints  on  earth.  This,  if  it 
be  not  some  remote  allusion  to  passages  of  Scripture, 
must  be  allowed  to  be  a  mere  ecclesiastical  reading  of 
nature's  symbols,  repudiated  by  the  universal  heart  of 
man,  and  therefore  by  true  poetry.  But  if  this  and 
some  other  instances,  pitched  on  a  false  key,  can  be 
pointed  out,  how  many  more  are  there  where  the  chord 
struck  answers  with  a  genuine  tone  ?  Even  in  the 
very  poem  which  contains  the  symbolism  condemned, 
is  there  not  the  following :  — 

M  The  glorious  sky  embracing  all 
Is  like  the  Maker's  love, 


KEBLE.  263 

Wherewith  encompassed  great  and  small 
In  peace  and  order  move." 

Here  Keble  has  christianized  an  analogy,  acknowl- 
edged not  only  by  the  Greek  conception  of  Zeus,  but 
more  or  less,  we  believe,  by  the  primeval  faith  of  the 
whole  Aryan  race. 

Of  the  many  instances  that  might  easily  be  gathered 
from  these  poems,  in  which  that  mysterious  chord  of 
analogy  that  binds  together  human  feeling  and  the  out- 
ward world  is  truly  touched,  one  more  must  be  given. 
It  is  from  the  poem  on  All  Saints'  Day.  As  that  day 
falls  on  the  1st  of  November,  a  time  so  often  beautiful 
with  the  bright  calm  of  St.  Luke's  summer,  the  follow- 
ing lines  serve  well  to  harmonize  the  feeling  of  the 
season  with  the  thoughts  which  the  Church  Festival  is 
meant  to  awaken :  — 

"  How  quiet  shows  the  woodland  scene ! 

Each  flower  and  tree,  its  duty  done, 
Reposing  in  decay  serene, 

Like  weary  men  when  age  is  won, 
Such  calm  old  age  as  conscience  pure 
And  self-commanding  hearts  insure, 
Waiting  their  summons  to  the  sky, 
Content  to  live,  but  not  afraid  to  die. 

As  might  be  looked  for  in  a  real  lover  of  nature, 
Keble's  imagery  is  that  which  he  had  lived  in  the  midst 
of,  and  knew.  The  shady  lanes,  the  more  open  hursts 
and  downs,  such  as  may  be  seen  near  Oxford,  and 
further  west  and  south,  "  England's  primrose  meadow 
paths,"  the  stiles  worn  by  generations,  and  the  gray 
church-tower  embowered  in  elm-trees,  —  with  these  his 
habitual  thoughts  and  sentiments  suit  well.  Even  in 
this  familiar  landscape  his  eye  and  ear  have  caught  facts 
and  aspects  of  nature,  which,  as  far  as  I  know,  have 
never  before  been  put  down  in  books.  Take  that 
instance  from  the  poem  on  the  Fifth  Sunday  after 
Easter  — 


264  KEBLE. 

"  Deep  is  the  silence  of  the  summer  noon, 
When  a  soft  shower 
Will  trickle  soon, 

A  gracious  rain,  freshening  the  weary  bower  — 
O  sweetly  then  far  off  is  heard 
The  clear  note  of  some  lonely  bird." 

Many  an  ear  before  Keble's  must  have  heard  a  soli- 
tary thrush  singing  in  the  distant  fields  amid  the  deep 
hush  that  preludes  the  thunder-storm  ;  but  no  poet  be- 
fore Keble,  as  far  as  I  know,  had  seized  that  impress- 
ive image  and  embalmed  it  in  verse.  Not  a  few  such 
images  or  aspects  of  the  quiet  English  landscape  will 
be  found  reclaimed  from  the  fields  for  the  first  time  in 
"The  Christian  Year."  "With  this  kind  of  scenery, 
which  was  familiar  to  him  all  his  life,  he  is  for  the  most 
part  content,  and  seldom  travels  beyond  it.  Indeed,  a 
very  true  test  of  the  genuineness  of  a  poet's  inspira- 
tion would  seem  to  be,  whether  his  imagery  is  mainly 
gathered  from  the  scenes  amidst  which  he  has  lived,  or 
is  borrowed  from  the  writings  of  former  poets  or  other 
artificial  sources.  Seldom  does  Keble  visit  mountain 
lands,  only  once  or  twice  in  "  The  Christian  Year." 
But  the  poem  for  the  20th  Sunday  after  Trinity,  though 
good,  might  have  been  written  by  one  who  had  never 
seen  mountains,  if  only  he  had  read  descriptions  of 
them. 

Besides  the  English  there  is  another  kind  of  land- 
scape hi  which  Keble  has  shown  himself  at  home. 
Dean  Stanley  has  noted  the  fidelity  with  which  he  has 
pictured  scenes  in  the  Holy  Land.  This  shows  not 
only  a  close  study  of  the  hints  that  are  to  be  found  in 
the  Bible  and  in  the  modern  books  about  Palestine,  — 
it  proves  how  quick  must  have  been  the  insight  into 
nature  of  one  who,  though  he  had  never  himself  be- 
held that  country,  could  from  such  materials  call  up 
pictures  true  enough  to  satisfy  the  eye  of  the  most 


KEBLE.  265 

graphic  of  modern  travellers  even  while  he  gazed  on 
those  very  scenes. 

There  are  two  sides  which  nature  turns  towards  the 
imagination.  One  is  that  which  the  poet  can  read  fig- 
uratively, in  which  he  can  see  symbols  and  analogies 
of  the  spiritual  world.  This  side  Keble,  as  we  have 
seen,  felt  and  read,  in  the  main  I  think  truly,  though 
sometimes  he  may  have  missed  it.  What  the  true 
reading  is,  and  how  it  is  to  be  discerned,  is  a  weighty 
matter  to  be  entered  on  here.  One  thing,  however,  is 
certain,  that  the  correspondency  between  the  natural 
object  and  the  spiritual,  between  nature  and  the  soul,  is 
there  existing  independently  of  the  individual  man. 
He  did  not  make  the  correspondency  ;  his  part  is  to 
see  and  interpret  truly  what  was  there  beforehand,  not 
to  read  into  nature  his  own  views  or  moods  waywardly 
and  capriciously.  The  truest  poet  is  he  who  reads  na- 
ture's hieroglyphics  most  truly  and  most  widely  ;  and 
the  test  of  the  true  reading  is  that  it  is  at  once  wel- 
comed by  the  universal  imagination  of  man.  This 
universal  or  catholic  imagination  of  man  is  far  different 
from  the  universal  suffrage  of  men.  It  means  the  im- 
agination of  those  in  whom  that  faculty  exists  in  the 
highest  degree,  cultivated  to  the  finest  sensibility.  The 
imagination  is  the  faculty  which  reads  truly,  the  fancy 
that  which  reads  capriciously,  and  so  falsely.  The 
former  seizes  true  and  really  existing  analogies  be- 
tween nature  and  spirit;  the  latter  makes  arbitrary  and 
fictitious  ones.  In  the  school  of  imagination,  as  op- 
posed to  fancy,  Keble  was  a  faithful  and  devout  stu- 
dent. It  was  the  music  of  his  pious  spirit  to  read 
aright  the  symbolical  side  which  nature  turns  towards 
man. 

But  nature  has  another  side,  of  which  there  is  no 
indication  in  Keble's  poetry.  I  mean  her  infinite  and 


266  KEBLE. 

unhuman  side,  which  yields  no  symbols  to  soothe  man's 
yearnings.  Outside  of  and  far  beyond  man,  his  hopes 
and  fears,  his  strivings  and  aspirations,  there  lies  the 
vast  immensity  of  nature's  forces,  which  pays  him  no 
homage,  and  yields  him  no  sympathy.  This  aspect  of 
nature  may  be  seen  even  amid  the  tamest  landscape,  if 
we  look  to  the  clouds  or  the  stars  above  us,  or  to  the 
ocean  roaring  around  our  shores.  But  nowhere  is  it 
borne  in  on  man  as  in  the  midst  of  the  vast  deserts 
of  the  earth,  or  in  the  presence  of  the  mountains, 
which  seem  so  impressive  and  unchangeable.  Their 
strength  and  permanence  so  contrast  with  man  —  of 
few  years  and  full  of  trouble ;  they  are  so  indifferent 
to  his  feelings  or  his  destiny.  He  may  smile  or  weep, 
he  may  live  or  die ;  they  care  not  They  are  the 
same  in  all  their  ongoings,  happen  what  will  to  him. 
They  respond  to  the  sunrises  and  the  sunsets,  but  not 
to  his  sympathies.  All  the  same  they  fulfill  their 
mighty  functions  careless  though  no  human  eye  should 
ever  look  on  them.  So  it  is  in  all  the  great  move- 
ments of  nature.  Man  holds  his  festal  days,  and  na- 
ture frowns ;  he  goes  forth  from  the  death-chamber, 
and  nature  affronts  him  with  sunshine  and  the  song  of 
birds.  Evidently,  it  seems,  she  marches  on,  having  a 
purpose  of  her  own  inaccessible  to  man ;  she  keeps  her 
own  secret,  and  drops  no  hint  to  him.  This  mysteri- 
ous silence,  this  inhuman  indifference,  this  inexorable 
deafness,  has  impressed  the  imagination  of  the  greatest 
poets  with  a  vague  yet  sublime  awe.  The  sense  of  it 
Aay  heavy  on  Lucretius,  Shelley,  Wordsworth,  and 
drew  out  their  soul's  profoundest  music.  This  side  of 
things,  whether  philosophically  or  imaginatively  re- 
garded, seems  to  justify  the  saying,  that  "  the  visible 
world  still  remains  without  its  divine  interpretation." 
But  it  was  not  on  thoughts  of  this  kind  that  Keble 


KEBLE.  267 

loved  to  dwell.  If  they  ever  occurred  to  him,  he  has 
nowhere  expressed  them.  He  was  content  with  that 
other  side  of  nature,  of  which  I  spoke  first,  the  side 
which  allows  itself  to  be  humanized,  that  is,  to  be  in- 
terpreted by  man's  faith  and  devout  aspirations.  This 
was  the  side  that  suited  his  religious  purpose,  and  to 
this  he  limited  himself.  Within  this  range  few  have 
ever  interpreted  nature  more  soothingly  and  beauti- 
fully. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  qualities  that  would  strike 
any  one  on  first  opening  "  The  Christian  Year."  They 
are  not,  however,  enough  to  account  for  its  unparalleled 
popularity.  Indeed,  popularity  is  no  word  to  express 
the  fact,  that  this  book  has  been  for  years  the  cherished 
companion  of  numbers  of  the  best  men,  in  their  best 
moods  —  men  too  of  the  most  diverse  characters  and 
schools  —  who  have  lived  in  our  time.  The,  secret  of 
this  power  is  a  compound  of  many  influences  hard  to 
state  or  explain.  It  has  not  been  hindered  by  the  blem- 
jshes  obvious  on  the  surface  to  every  one,  inharmonious 
rhythms,  frequent  obscurity,  here  and  there  poverty  and 
conventionality  of  diction.  In  spite  of  these  it  has  won 
its  way  to  the  hearts  of  the  highly  educated  and  refined, 
as  no  book  of  poetry,  sacred  or  secular,  in  our  time  has 
done.  Will  it  continue  to  do  so  ?  Will  its  own  im- 
perfections, and  the  changing  currents  of  men's  feelings 
not  alienate  from  it  a  generation  rendered  fastidious  by 
poetry  of  more  artistic  perfection,  more  highly  colored, 
more  richly  flavored?  Without  speaking  too  confi- 
dently, it  may  be  expected  to  live  on,  if  not  in  so  won- 
derful esteem,  yet  widely  read  and  deeply  felt ;  for  it 
makes  its  appeal  to  no  temporary  or  accidental  feelings, 
but  mainly  to  that  which  is  permanent  in  man.  It  can 
hardly  be  that  it  should  lose  its  hold  on  the  affections 
of  English-speaking  men  as  long  as  Christianity  retains 


268  KEBLE. 

it.  For  if  we  may  judge  from  the  past,  it  will  be  long 
ere  another  character  of  the  same  rare  and  saintly 
beauty  shall  again  concur  with  a  poetic  gift  and  power 
of  poetic  expression,  which,  if  not  of  the  highest,  are 
still  of  a  very  high  order.  Broader  and  bolder  imagi- 
nation, greater  artistic  faculty,  many  poets  who  were 
his  contemporaries  possessed.  But  in  none  of  them  did 
there  burn  a  spiritual  light  so  pure  and  heavenly,  to 
transfigure  these  gifts  from  within.  It  is  because 
"  The  Christian  Year  "  has  succeeded  in  conveying  to 
the  outer  world  some  effluence  of  that  character  which 
his  intimate  friends  loved  and  revered  in  Keble,  that, 
as  I  believe,  it  will  not  cease  to  hold  a  quite  peculiar 
place  in  the  affections  of  posterity. 


THE   MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER 


is  Ethical  Science,  as  pursued  in  this  country, 
of  late  years,  even  to  reflecting  men,  so  little  attractive 
and  so  little  edifying?  The  cognate  study  of  meta- 
physics has,  after  long  neglect,  recently,  in  a  wonderful 
way,  renewed  its  youth,  but  to  moral  science  no  such 
revival  has  as  yet  come.  And  yet  human  character, 
the  subject  it  deals  with,  is  one,  it  would  seem,  of  no 
inconsiderable  interest.  Physical  science  has  no  doubt 
drained  off  the  current  of  men's  thoughts,  and  left 
many  subjects  which  once  engaged  them  high  and  dry. 
But  man,  his  spiritual  being,  and  the  light  which  is  to 
enlighten  it,  his  possibilities  here,  his  destiny  hereafter, 
these  still  remain,  amid  all  the  absorption  of  external 
things,  the  one  highest  marvel,  the  permanent  centre 
of  interest  to  men.  It  cannot  be  said  that  modern  lit- 
erature —  the  great  exponent  of  what  men  are  think- 
ing—  circles  less  than  of  old  round  the  great  human 
problems.  Rather  with  the  circuit  of  the  suns,  not 
only  have  the  thoughts  of  men  widened,  but  also  their 
moral  consciousness,  I  will  not  say  their  heart,  has 
deepened.  Modern  literature,  as  compared  with  that 
of  last  century,  has  nothing  more  distinctive  in  it  than 
this,  —  that  it  has  broken  into  deeper  ground  of  senti- 
ment and  reflection,  ground  which  had  hitherto  lain 
fallow,  non-existent,  or  unperceived.  About  the  deeper 
Boul  secrets,  literary  men  of  last  centuiy  either  did  not 


270  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWLR. 

greatly  trouble  themselves,  or  they  practiced  a  very 
strict  reserve.  But  our  own  and  the  preceding  age 
has  seen  an  unveiling  of  the  most  inward  —  often  of 
the  most  sacred  feelings  —  which  has  sometimes  gone 
beyond  the  limits  of  manliness  and  self-respect.  This 
bringing  to  light  of  layers  of  consciousness  hitherto  con- 
cealed, if  at  times  carried  too  far,  has  certainly  enriched 
our  literature  with  new  wealth  of  moral  content.  In  the 
best  modern  poetry  it  has  shown  itself  by  greater  inten- 
sity and  spirituality  ;  in  the  highest  modern  novels,  by 
delicacy  of  analysis,  discrimination  of  the  finer  tints  of 
feeling,  variety  and  fine  shading  of  character  hitherto 
unknown  ;  in  the  modern  essay,  by  a  subtleness  and 
penetrative  force  which  make  the  most  perfect  papers 
of  Addison  seem  almost  trivial.  It  further  manifests 
itself  in  the  growing  love  and  keener  appreciation  of 
the  few  great  world  poets,  who  are  after  all  the  finest 
embodiments  of  moral  wisdom.  It  may  be  that  so  much 
ethical  thought  has  been  turned  off  into  these  channels 
that  it  has  left  less  to  be  expended  in  the  more  sys- 
tematic form  of  ethical  science.  It  may  be  too,  that,  as 
the  field  of  moral  experience  widens,  and  the  meaning 
of  life  deepens,  and  its  problems  become  more  complex, 
it  demands  proportionably  stronger  and  rarer  powers 
to  gather  up  all  this  wealth,  and  illumine  it  with  the 
light  of  reason.  Certain  it  is  that  the  modern  time 
produces  no  such  masters  of  moral  wisdom  for  our  day, 
as  Aristotle  and  Marcus  Aurelius  were  to  the  old 
world,  or  even  as  Bishop  Butler  was  to  his  generation. 
Wide,  many-sided,  sensitive,  deep,  complex,  as  is  the 
moral  life  in  which  we  now  move,  if  we  would  seek 
any  philosophic  guidance  through  its  intricacies,  any 
thinking  which  is  at  once  solid,  clear,  practical,  and  in- 
istinct  with  life,  we  must  turn,  not  to  any  modern  trea- 
tise, but  to  the  pages  of  these  by-gone  worthies.  What 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  271 

help  ardent  spirits,  looking  for  guidance  in  our  day, 
have  found,  has  been  won  not  from  the  philosophers, 
but  from  some  living  poet,  some  giant  of  literature  with 
no  pretension  to  philosophy,  or  some  inspired  preacher. 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Carlyle,  Newman,  Frederick 
Robertson,  these,  not  the  regular  philosophers,  have 
been  the  moral  teachers  of  our  generation,  and  to  these 
young  men  have  turned,  to  get  from  them  what  help 
they  might  And  now  it  seems  that  in  these  last  days 
many,  wearied  out  with  straining  after  their  impalpable 
spiritualities,  and  baffled  for  lack  of  a  consistent  spirit- 
ual theory,  have  betaken  themselves  to  a  style  of  think- 
ing which,  if  it  promises  less,  offers,  as  they  think, 
something  more  systematic  and  more  certain.  In  de- 
spair of  spiritual  truth,  they  are  fain  to  fill  their  hunger 
with  the  husks  of  a  philosophy  which  would  confine  all 
men's  thoughts  within  the  phenomenal  world,  and  deny 
all  knowledge  that  goes  beyond  the  co-existences  and 
successions  of  phenomena. 

From  aberrations  like  this  perhaps  no  moral  philos- 
ophy would  have  delivered  men.  But  it  would  be 
well  if,  warned  by  such  signs,  it  were  to  return  closer 
to  life  and  fact,  deal  more  with  things  which  men 
really  feel,  if,  leaving  general  sentiments  and  moral 
theories,  it  would  attempt  some  true  diagnosis  of  the 
very  complex  facts  of  human  nature,  of  the  moral 
maladies  from  which  men  suffer,  the  burdens  they 
need  to  have  removed,  the  aspirations  which  they  can 
practically  live  by.  Instead  of  this,  —  instead  of  deal- 
ing with  the  actual  and  the  ideal,  which  co-exist  in  man, 
and  out  of  which,  if  at  all,  a  harmony  of  life  is  to  be 
woven,  philosophers  have  been  content  to  repeat  a 
meagre  and  conventional  psychology,  taken  mostly 
from  books,  not  fresh  from  living  hearts;  or  they  have 
lost  themselves  in  the  metaphysical  problems  which 


272  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

no  doubt  everywhere  underlie  moral  life,  but  which, 
pursued  too  exclusively,  distract  attention  from  the 
vital  realities.  These  two  causes  have  exhausted  the 
strength  and  the  interest  of  moral  study  —  either  a 
cut-and-dried  conventional  psychology,  or  absorbing 
metaphysical  discussion.  The  former,  in  which  moral 
truths  appeared  shriveled  up,  like  plants  in  a  botanist's 
herbarium,  is  the  style  of  thing  you  find  in  the  most 
approved  text-books  of  the  last  generation. 

"  Never  before,"  as  one  has  smartly  said,  "  had  hu- 
man nature  been  so  neatly  dissected,  so  handily  sorted, 
or  so  ornamentally  packed  up.  The  virtues  and  vices, 
the  appetites,  emotions,  affections,  and  sentiments  stood 
each  in  their  appointed  corner,  and  with  their  appro- 
priate label,  to  wait  in  neat  expectation  for  the  season 
of  the  professorial  lectures,  and  the  literary  world  only 
delayed  their  acquiescence  in  a  uniform  creed  of  moral 
philosophy  till  they  should  have  arranged  to  their 
satisfaction  whether  the  appetites  should  be  secreted 
in  the  cupboard  or  paraded  on  the  chimney-piece ;  or 
whether  certain  of  the  less  creditable  packets  ought 
in  law  and  prudence,  or  ought  not  in  charity,  to  be 
ticketed  '  Poison.'  Everything  was  as  it  should  be, 
or  was  soon  to  be  so  —  differences  were  not  too  dif- 
ferent, nor  unanimity  too  unanimous  —  opinion  did 
not  degenerate  into  certainty,  nor  interest  into  ear- 
nestness, moral  philosophy  stood  apart,  like  a  literary 
gentleman  of  easy  circumstances,  from  religion  and 
politics,  and  truth  itself  was  grateful  for  patronage, 
instead  of  being  clamorous  for  allegiance.  Types  were 
delicate,  margins  were  large,  publishers  were  attentive, 
the  intellectual  world  said  it  was  intellectual,  and  the 
public  acquiesced  in  the  assertion.  What  more  could 
scientific  hearts  desire  ?  " 

This  description  may  contain  something  of  carica- 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  273 

ture,  and  yet  there  are  books  enough  on  moral  science 
which  justify  it  —  books  which  have  no  doubt  suc- 
ceeded in  disgusting  many  with  the  subject  of  which 
they  treat.  Nor  has  moral  philosophy  suffered  less 
from  those  deeper  and  more  abstract  discussions  which 
have  often  in  modern  times  been  substituted  for  itself. 
Men  of  a  profounder  turn  have  so  busied  themselves 
with  investigations  of  the  nature  of  right,  the  law  of 
duty,  freedom,  and  necessity,  and  such  like  hard  matters, 
that  these  have  absorbed  all  their  interest  and  energy, 
and  left  none  for  the  treatment  of  those  concrete  real- 
ities which  make  up  the  moral  life  of  man.  Not  that 
such  discussions  can  be  dispensed  with.  They  are 
always  necessary,  never  more  so  than  now,  when  the 
spiritual  ground  of  man's  moral  being  is  so  often  denied 
by  materialistic  or  by  merely  phenomenal  systems. 
It  would  perhaps,  however,  be  well  that  they  should 
be  made  a  department  by  themselves,  under  the  title 
of  Metaphysic  of  Ethics,  to  be  entered  on  by  those 
who  have  special  gifts  for  such  inquiries.  For  when 
substituted  for  the  whole  or  chief  part  of  moral  inquiry, 
they  become  "  unpractical  discussions  of  a  practical 
subject,"  and  as  such  alienate  many  from  a  study 
which,  rightly  treated,  would  deepen  their  thought  and 
elevate  their  character. 

For  what  is  the  real  object  with  which  moral  science 
deals  ?  Every  science  has  some  concrete  entity,  some 
congeries  of  facts,  which  is  called  in  a  general  way  its 
subject-matter.  Botany,  we  say,  deals  with  plants  or 
herbs,  geology  with  the  strata  which  form  the  earth's 
crust,  astronomy  with  the  stars  and  their  motions,  psy- 
chology with  all  the  states  of  human  consciousness. 
What,  then,  is  the  concrete  entity  with  which  moral 
science  deals  ?  It  is  not  the  active  powers  of  man, 
nor  the  emotions,  nor  the  moral  faculty  —  not  these, 
18 


274  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

each  or  all.  It  is  simply  human  character.  This  is 
the  one  great  subject  it  has  ever  before  it-  About  this 
it  asks  what  is  character,  its  nature,  its  elements;  what 
influences  make  it,  what  mar  it;  in  what  consists  its 
perfection,  what  is  its  destiny  ?  This  may  seem  a 
very  elementary  statement,  but  it  is  quite  needful  to 
recur  to  it,  and  even  to  reiterate  it,  so  much  has  it 
been  lost  sight  of  in  the  pursuit  of  side  questions 
branching  out  of  it.  At  the  outset,  before  any  anal- 
ysis is  begun,  the  student  cannot  too  deeply  take  in 
and  ponder  the  impression  of  character  as  a  great  and 
substantive  reality.  Some  vague  perception  of  char- 
acter all  men,  of  course,  have.  They  are  aware, 
whether  they  dwell  on  it  or  not,  that  men  differ  not 
only  in  face  and  form  and  outward  appearance,  but  in 
something  more  inward,  they  cannot  exactly  tell  what. 
But  further  than  this  confused  notion  most  persons  do 
not  go.  Others  there  are  who  see  much  more  than 
this,  who  have  a  keen  penetrating  glance  into  every 
man  they  meet,  apprehend  his  bias,  know  what  manner 
of  man  he  is,  and  deal  with  him  accordingly.  This 
gift,  so  useful  in  practice,  we  call  an  eye  to  character ; 
those  who  possess  it,  good  judges  of  character.  It  is 
the  same  gift  of  discerning  the  quality  of  men  which 
some  persons  have  of  judging  of  horses  and  other 
cattle.  JEschylus  spoke  of  a  good  judge  of  character 
as  irpo^SaToyvw/Auv.  But  this  practical  insight,  so  use- 
ful in  business,  and  it  may  be  to  a  certain  extent 
in  speculation,  is  something  distinct  from  a  fine  and 
deep  perception  of  the  higher  moralities  of  character. 
Shrewd  observers  of  human  nature  are  often  keen  to 
discern  the  weaknesses  and  foibles  of  men,  and  even 
to  exaggerate  them,  but  slow  to  perceive  those  finer 
traits  of  heart  which  lie  deeper.  The  apprehension 
of  character  with  which  the  student  should  begin,  and 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  275 

which  his  moral  studies  ought  to  deepen,  is  something 
very  different  from  this.  It  is  an  eye  open  to  see,  a 
heart  sensitive  to  feel,  the  higher  excellences  of  human 
nature,  as  they  have  existed,  and  still  exist  in  the  best 
of  the  race.  It  is  a  spirit  the  very  opposite  of  that 
of  the  cynic,  one  which,  while  it  looks  steadily  at  the 
moral  maladies  and  even  basenesses  into  which  men 
fall,  yet,  without  being  sentimental,  loves  more  to  con- 
template the  nobler  than  the  baser  side,  which,  behind 
the  commonplaces  and  trivialities,  can  seize  life's 
deeper  import,  and  look  up,  and  aspire  towards  the 
heights  which  have  been  attained  and  are  still  attain- 
able by  man.  To  call  out  and  strengthen  in  young 
minds  such  perceptions  is  one  main  end  of  moral 
teaching.  No  doubt  there  are  influences  which  can 
do  this  more  powerfully  than  any  teaching.  To  have 
seen  and  known  lives  which  have  embodied  these  fair 
qualities,  to  have  felt  the  touch  of  their  human  good- 
ness, to  have  companioned  with  those  — 

"  Whose  soul  the  holy  forma 
Of  young  imagination  hath  kept  pure;  " 

to  have  fed  on  high  thoughts,  and  been  familiar  with 
the  examples  of  the  heroes,  the  sages,  the  saints  of 
all  time,  so  as  to  believe  that  such  lives  were  once  on 
earth,  and  are  not  impossible  even  now,  —  these  are, 
beyond  all  teaching,  the  "  virtue-making "  powers. 
But  moral  philosophy,  though  subordinate  to  these,  is 
useless  if  it  does  not  supplement  them ;  if  it  does  not 
at  once  justify  the  heart's  aspiration  on  grounds  of 
reason,  and  strengthen,  by  enlightening,  the  will  to 
pursue  them.  Character,  then,  hi  the  concrete,  truth- 
ful, solid,  pure,  high,  as  "  better  than  gold,  yea  than 
fine  gold,  its  revenue  than  choice  silver,"  —  as  the  best 
thing  we  meet  with  in  all  our  experience,  the  one 


276  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

thing  needful  for  a  man,  which  to  have  got  is  to  get 
all,  to  have  missed  is  to  miss  all,  —  this  cannot  be  too 
fully  set  before  the  learner  at  the  outset,  as  the  goal 
to  which  all  his  inquiries  must  tend,  which  alone 
gives  his  inquiries  any  value.  If  this  is  not  seen  and 
grasped  broadly  and  deeply  at  first,  and  its  presence  felt 
throughout  all  our  reasoning,  the  discussion  and  anal- 
ysis that  follow  become  mere  words  —  hair-splitting 
and  logomachy. 

To  observe  moral  facts,  and  retain  them  steadily, 
requires  a  moral  perception  innate  or  trained,  or  both. 
Every  reader  of  Aristotle's  Ethics  will  remember  his 
saying,  that  "  he  should  have  been  well  trained  in  his 
habits  who  is  to  study  aright  things  beautiful  and  just, 
and  in  short  all  moral  subjects.  For  facts  are  the 
starting-point."  Quickness  and  tenacity  of  moral  per- 
ception is  not  so  much  an  intellectual  as  a  moral  gift. 
Nay,  it  is  easy  to  overdo  the  intellectual  part  of  the 
process.  Too  rigid  logic,  too  exact  defining  and  sub- 
dividing of  that  which  often  can  be  but  inadequately 
defined,  kills  it.  It  is  like  trying  to  hold  a  sunbeam 
hi  an  iron  vice.  The  faculty  that  will  best  catch  the 
many  aspects  and  finer  traits  of  character  must  be  a 
nice  combination,  an  even  balance  between  mental 
keenness  and  moral  emotion.  It  is  the  heart  within 
the  head  which  makes  up  that  form  of  philosophic 
imagination  most  needed  by  the  moralist.  If  moral 
character,  in  its  higher  aspects,  were  set  thus  truly  and 
strongly  before  young  minds,  it  would  require  little 
else  to  counteract  materialism.  Such  elevating  views 
might  be  left,  almost  without  reasonings,  to  work  their 
natural  effect  on  all  who  were  susceptible  of  them. 

Character  has  been  defined  as  "a  completely  fash- 
ioned will."  This,  as  has  been  said,  is  to  be  kept 
continually  before  us  in  all  moral  inquiry  as  its  prao 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  277 

tical  end,  —  that  which  gives  it  solidity.  But  when 
once  we  have  looked  at  it  steadily,  whether  as  it  has 
existed  actually  in  the  best  men,  or  in  the  ideal,  the 
question  at  once  arises,  How  is  this  right  character  to 
be  attained  ?  How  is  the  good  that  is  within  to  be 
made  ascendant,  —  the  less  good  to  be  subordinated; 
the  evil  to  be  cast  out?  Of  the  numerous  questions 
which  this  practically  suggests,  as  to  the  standard  by 
which  character  is  to  be  tested,  the  foundation  of  moral 
goodness,  and  many  more,  the  simplest  and  most 
obvious  is  to  ask,  What  is  in  man?  What  are  the 
various  elements  of  man's  nature  ?  Thus  we  are  at 
once  landed  hi  psychology.  And  so  it  has  happened, 
that  almost  all  great  ethical  thinkers,  whatever  their 
method,  even  when  it  depends  mainly  on  certain  great 
a  priori  conceptions,  have  attempted  some  enumeration 
of  the  various  parts  or  elements  which  make  up  human 
nature.  Begun  by  Plato  and  Aristotle,  carried  on  by 
the  Stoics,  revived  in  modern  times  by  Hobbes,  not 
neglected  even  by  demonstrative  Spinoza,  this  way  of 
proceeding  by  observation  of  living  men,  and  of  our 
own  minds,  formed  the  whole  staple  of  Bishop  Butler's 
method.  It  is  strange,  as  we  read  the  first  fetches  into 
human  nature  of  those  early  thinkers,  with  how  much 
more  living  power  they  come  home  to  us  than  modern 
psychologies.  This  comes  probably  of  their  having 
read  their  facts  straight  off  their  own  hearts,  or  from 
observation  of  other  men.  There  is  something  in  the 
first  thoughts  of  the  world  which  can  never  recur, 
something  in  having  been  the  first  utterer  of  those 
words,  the  first  noter  of  those  distinctions,  which 
thenceforth  were  to  become  the  common  inheritance 
of  all  men.  Compared  with  theirs,  the  moral  psychol- 
ogy of  recent  times  has  for  the  most  part  become  stale 
and  conventional,  because,  the  first  main  outlines 


278  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

having  been  already  laid  down,  the  moderns  have  but 
repeated  with  slight  alterations  the  old  analysis,  pre- 
senting us  with  tabulated  lists  of  appetites,  desires, 
passions,  affections,  and  so  forth,  at  which  men  only 
yawn.  In  fairness,  however,  I  must  allow,  although 
with  an  entire  dissent  from  the  fundamental  principles 
of  Professor  Bain's  philosophy,  that  I  have  found  in 
his  elaborate  work  on  the  "  Emotions  and  the  Will " 
many  facts  which  are  either  new,  or  at  least  which  I 
have  not  before  seen  registered  in  systematic  treatises. 
Certainly  if  psychology  is  to  interest  and  instruct  once 
more,  it  must  leave  the  stereotyped  forms,  and  enrich 
itself  with  new  and  hitherto  unnoted  facts,  gathered 
partly  from  the  more  subtle  and  varied  shades  of 
feeling,  partly  from  the  wider  survey  of  human  history, 
and  the  deepened  human  experience  which  the  latest 
civilization  has  opened  up.  The  surest  method  then 
for  ethical  science,  is  to  begin  with  moral  psychology  ; 
that  is,  with  a  close  study  of  the  phenomena  which 
make  up  man's  moral  nature.  This  is  its  beginning, 
but  not  its  end.  From  observation  of  these,  it  will 
be  led  down  to  fundamental  ideas  which  underlie 
them  ;  belonging  to  that  border  land  where  morality 
and  religion  meet. 

Whatever  be  the  method  most  applicable  to  system- 
atic moral  treatises,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  for 
the  learner  and  the  careful  investigator  alike,  the  sure 
path  is  from  the  known  to  the  unknown,  starting  from 
the  concrete  facts  of  which  all  may  be  conscious,  to 
work  thence  backward  towards  the  hidden  principles 
which  these  facts  embody.  To  say  this  is  but  to  say 
that  moral  science  should  adhere  to  the  method  which 
has  been  found  best  in  all  other  sciences.  This  is  no 
new  view,  but  at  least  as  old  as  Aristotle.  The  words 
in  which  he  insists  on  it,  early  in  his  Ethics,  are  famil- 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  279 

iar  enough.  But  the  old  truth  has  been  lately  so  well 
stated  in  an  essay  by  Mr.  Wilson  of  Rugby,  on  "  Teach- 
ing Natural  Science,"  that  I  cannot  do  better  than  give 
in  his  own  words  his  admirable  statement.  Substitute 
the  word  4<  moral "  for  "  natural,"  and  every  word  he 
says  of  physical  science  will  apply  with  still  stronger 
force  to  ethical,  in  proportion  as  the  facts  which  the 
latter  deals  with  are  more  dim  and  hard  to  grasp,  and 
therefore  more  liable  to  pass  into  mere  phrases  and 
formulae.  Mr.  Wilson  observes,  "  There  are  two  differ- 
ent methods  of  teaching  science :  one  the  method  of 
investigation,  the  other  the  method  of  authority.  The 
first  starts  with  the  concrete  and  works  up  to  the  ab- 
stract ;  starts  with  facts,  and  ends  with  laws  ;  begins 
with  the  known,  and  ends  with  the  unknown.  The 
second  starts  with  what  we  call  the  principles  of  the 
science ;  announces  laws  and  includes  the  facts  under 
them ;  declares  the  unknown,  and  applies  it  to  the 
known."  Of  "  the  two,  the  latter  is  the  easier,  the 
former  is  by  far  the  better."  Again,  why  the  former 
is  the  better  he  thus  shows :  "  1st,  Because  knowl- 
edge must  precede  science,  which  is  only  systematized 
experience  and  knowledge.  A  certain  broad  array  of 
facts  must  preexist  and  be  known,  before  scientific 
methods  can  be  applied.  2d,  Whatever  new  facts  you 
give  the  learner  they  must  not  be  purely  foreign  facts, 
but  must  fit  on  to  his  already  existing  stock.  It  is  to 
this  existing  knowledge,  and  to  that  alone,  you  must 
dig  down  to  get  a  sure  foundation,  and  the  facts  of 
your  science  must  reach  continuously  down,  and  rest 
securely  thereon.  Otherwise  you  will  be  building  a 
castle  in  the  air."  These  observations  are  as  applica- 
ble to  the  learner  of  moral  as  of  physical  science.  Nor 
less  worthy  of  the  moralist's  attention  are  Mr.  Wilson's 
further  remarks,  showing  how  easily  scientific  teaching 


280  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

passes  from  things  to  words.  If  strange  terms  and 
formulae  are  presented  to  the  learner  before  he  has 
realized  the  ideas  and  laws  which  these  express,  he  is 
at  once  landed  in  "  cram."  No  scientific  name  should 
ever  be  given  for  a  fact  or  idea,  before  there  is  a  real 
need  for  it ;  that  is,  before  the  fact  or  idea  is  clearly 
grasped,  and  the  want  of  a  name  to  fix  it  is  really  felt. 
Then,  and  not  till  then,  the  new  name  may  be  safely 
given.  No  principle  of  classification  should  be  an- 
nounced before  we  have  fairly  climbed  by  steps  of 
reasoning  up  to  it.  Any  one  who  has  observed  young 
students  in  philosophy  knows  how  readily  they  catch 
up  technical  words,  which  have  a  high  sound,  but  are 
for  them  almost  meaningless.  And  this  danger  is  much 
greater  in  moral  than  in  physical  subjects,  because  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  former,  unmeaning  words  so 
much  more  easily  take  the  place  of  thoughts,  and  the 
substitution  is  so  much  more  harder  to  detect.  Many 
feel  this  so  keenly  that  they  consider  it  a  fatal  objection 
against  mental  philosophy  being  made  a  study  for  the 
young.  It  fills  the  young  head,  they  say,  with  windy 
abstractions  merely,  which  have  under  them  no  solid 
content.  When  Watt  of  Harden  lifted  the  cover  off 
the  dish  which  his  fair  Flower  of  Yarrow  now  and 
then  served  up  to  him,  he  found  at  least  a  pair  of  clean 
spurs,  which  told  him  it  was  time  to  rise  and  ride. 
But  when  you  lift  the  cover  off  these  abstractions,  they 
say,  you  find  not  even  cold  hard  spurs,  but  only  empty 
wind.  The  only  way  to  counterwork  this  danger,  to 
which,  I  admit,  young  philosophers  are  exposed,  is  to 
begin  with  the  facts  of  consciousness  that  lie  at  our  feet. 
We  may  not  be  able  to  climb  thence  to  the  upper 
heights,  but  we  shall  at  all  events  make  sure  of  possess- 
ing the  near,  if  we  do  not  reach  the  far. 

Let  it  not  be  said  that,  by  thus  insisting  on  a  broad, 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  281 

sure  basis  of  fact  to  begin  with,  I  condemn  moral 
science  to  pure  empiricism,  and  confound  it  with  mere 
physical  science.  This  might  be  true  if  I  confined  its 
aim,  as  has  sometimes  been  done,  to  observing  and  clas- 
sifying successive  "  states  of  mind,"  and  of  emotion. 
But  when  we  remember  that  the  facts  it  has  to  take 
account  of  are  no  mere  passive  states,  but  such  facts  as 
personality,  will,  conscience,  though  the  method  we 
start  with  is  the  same  as  the  physical,  our  very  obser- 
vations soon  transport  us  into  a  very  different  region, 
in  which  the  thought  most  forced  on  us  is  not  the  like- 
ness, but  the  contrast,  to  physical  phenomena.  As  for 
staying  at  home,  confined  to  mere  empiricism,  we  shall 
soon  find  that  these  home-facts,  so  near  us,  are  close  in 
kin  and  neighborhood  to  whatever  is  highest  in  being. 
From  the  facts  of  moral  consciousness,  fully  realized, 
pathways  strike  off  that  lead  to  the  remotest  distances  of 
history,  and  down  to  the  profoundest  depths  of  thought. 
"We  shall  not  less  surely  trace  the  evolution  of  moral 
systems,  and  the  growth  of  moral  ideas,  because  we 
have  begun  with  grasping  the  concrete  facts  which,  in 
their  complex  state,  have  first  met  us  in  every-day  ex- 
perience. Nor  shall  we  thus  be  in  a  worse  position  to 
investigate  the  fundamental  idea  of  right  which  lies 
under  all  morality,  and  to  inquire  whether  there  is 
righteousness  which  pertains  not  to  man  only,  but  in 
which  all  rational  beings  alike  are  sharers. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  moral  psychology  may 
go  to  work.  It  may  begin  at  the  core  of  man's  being, 
at  the  central  creative  energy,  the  mysterious  con- 
scious "  I,"  the  fully  formed  personal  will,  and  then 
show  how  the  several  powers  and  feelings  stand  related 
to  this  free  centre  of  spontaneity.  But  the  easier,  if 
less  scientific  way  is,  beginning  at  the  outside,  to  follow 
what  we  may  conceive  to  be  the  historical  growth  of 


282  TEE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

the  individual,  as  well  as  of  the  race,  and  to  show  how 
each  of  the  phases  of  our  being  successively  rises  into 
prominence.  Such  a  survey  would  place  before  us 
man  in  his  earliest  stage  as  a  mass  of  natural  appeten- 
cies or  instinctive  tendencies,  each  seeking  blindly  its 
appropriate  end,  the  reaching  of  which  is  necessary  to 
continued  existence.  Accompanying  these  primitive 
desires,  we  should  find  certain  faculties  which  are  the 
instruments  by  which  the  former  read  their  end,  —  the 
executive  as  it  were  of  the  blind  impulses.  During 
this  stage,  the  spontaneous  action  of  these  appetencies 
engenders  certain  secondary  passions,  such  as  love  of 
things  which  help  the  attainment  of  their  ends,  hatred 
of  things  which  thwart  them.  Of  these  primitive  out- 
goings, some  we  can  see  have  reference  to  the  good  of 
self,  some  to  the  good  of  others,  long  before  self-grati- 
fication is  set  before  us  as  a  conscious  object.  Such  is 
the  earliest  stage  of  our  existence,  —  the  appetitive, 
the  spontaneous  or  semi-conscious,  as  we  see  it  in  in- 
fants, or  in  uncivilized  tribes.  This  is  the  raw  mate- 
rial, as  it  were,  out  of  which  character  is  to  be  formed. 
The  aggregate  amount  of  all  these  primitive  ele- 
ments, and  the  relative  proportions  in  which  the  higher 
and  the  lower  are  mingled  in  each  man,  will  go  far  to 
determine  what  he  will  ultimately  become. 

But  out  of  the  midst  of  this  blind  congeries  expe- 
rience develops  new  powers.  Very  early  in  the  appe- 
titive life  the  desires  must  meet  with  obstacles,  and  the 
faculties  that  purvey  for  them  are  thwarted,  driven  in- 
ward, and  forced  to  concentrate  themselves  for  a  more 
conscious  effort  to  remove  the  hindrance.  Here,  then, 
is  the  first  dawning,  the  earliest  consciousness  of  will, 
within  us.  Again,  out  of  the  appetitive  life,  when  ex- 
perienced long  enough,  there  rises  ever  more  clearly 
a  power  of  intelligence  or  reflection  which,  observing 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  283 

that  each  desire  has  its  own  end,  and  that  the  attain- 
ment of  that  end  brings  pleasure,  generalizes  from 
these  separate  goods  the  idea  of  a  general  good  for  our 
whole  nature,  a  satisfaction  arising  from  the  permanent 
gratification  of  all  our  desires,  or  at  least  of  as  many 
of  them  as  may  be  possible.  Reflection  soon  perceives 
that  desire  left  to  act  blindly  —  our  nature  swayed 
now  by  this,  now  by  that  impulse  —  does  not  attain  to 
any  stable  happiness.  Some  kinds  of  action,  it  ob- 
serves, make  towards  this  happiness,  others  thwart  it ; 
the  former  it  calls  useful  actions,  the  latter  hurtful. 
From  these  observations  it  generalizes  the  idea  of  a 
total  personal  good  or  self-interest  as  an  end  to  be 
aimed  at,  and  forms  subordinate  rules  of  conduct  with 
a  view  to  attain  that  end.  Self-interest,  thus  intelli- 
gently conceived,  may  become  an  end  of  life,  or  what 
is  called  motive  —  an  ever  present  motive  to  guide  the 
will.  Governed  by  this  motive,  the  will  can  control 
anarchic  passion  and  introduce  order  into  a  man's  de- 
sires and  conduct.  In  doing  this,  the  will,  besides  the 
power  of  reflection,  is  fortified  by  the  emotions  also ; 
because  by  a  law  of  our  nature,  self-interest,  when 
once  conceived  as  an  end,  is  eagerly  embraced  as  a 
new  object  for  the  affections.  This  is  the  second  or 
prudential  stage  of  our  nature.  Some  men  remain  all 
their  lives  in  the  former  or  appetitive  stage,  and  these 
we  call  impulsive  men.  Others  regulate  their  actions 
by  well- calculated  self-interest,  and  these  we  call  pru- 
dent, or  it  may  be,  if  self-interest  is  too  absorbing,  self- 
ish men.  But  though  the  two  types  of  character  are 
clear,  yet  so  infinitely  diversified  are  these  simple  ele- 
ments in  themselves,  and  in  their  degrees  of  strength, 
that  perhaps  no  two  men  ever  lived  in  whom  they 
were  compounded  exactly  alike,  in  no  two  men  was  the 
same  physiognomy  of  character  ever  reproduced. 


284  THE  MORAL   MOTIVE  POWER. 

But  not  any  or  all  of  the  elements  yet  noticed,  how- 
ever mingled,  would  make  what  is  called  a  moral  be- 
ing ;  they  do  not  yet  rise  above  the  life  of  nature. 
To  do  this,  there  needs  to  dawn  another  and  higher 
consciousness.  Reflection  cannot  stop  at  the  idea  of 
merely  personal  good,  for  it  sees  that  there  are  other 
beings  of  the  same  nature  and  desires  as  ourselves, 
who  have  each  a  self-interest  of  their  own  as  well  as 
we.  But  as  the  personal  good  of  others  often  collides 
with  ours,  and  as  one  or  other  must  give  way,  we  begin 
to  see  that  the  good  of  others  deserves  as  much  re- 
spect, ought  to  be  as  sacred  in  our  eyes,  as  our  own. 
So  we  rise  to  feel  that,  above  our  sensitive  and  individ- 
ual life,  there  is  a  higher,  more  universal  order  to 
which  we  and  all  individual  souls  even  now  belong, 
that  this  higher  order  secures  and  harmonizes  the  ulti- 
mate good  of  all  rational  beings,  and  that  the  particu- 
lar good  of  each,  though  in  harmony  with  this  order, 
and  an  element  of  it,  must  be  subordinated  to  it.  To 
realize  this  spiritual  order,  and  be  a  fellow-worker  with 
it,  is  felt  to  be  the  absolute,  the  moral  good,  an  end  in 
itself,  higher  and  more  ultimate  than  all  other  ends. 
This  idea,  this  end,  this  impersonal  good,  once  con- 
ceived, comes  home  to  us  with  a  new  and  peculiar  con- 
sciousness. In  its  presence  we  for  the  first  time  be- 
come aware  of  a  law  which  has  a  right  to  command  us, 
which  is  obligatory  on  us,  which  to  obey  is  a  duty. 
Seen  in  the  light  of  this  law,  the  good  of  others,  we 
feel,  has  a  right  to  determine  our  choice  equally  with 
our  own,  and  our  own  good  loses  its  merely  temporary 
and  finite,  and  assumes  an  impersonal  and  eternal 
character.  This  consciousness  it  is  which  makes  us 
moral  agents.  Only  in  the  idea  of  such  a  transcend- 
ent law  above  us,  independent  of  us,  universal,  and  of 
Jt  will  .determined  by  it,  does  morality  begin.  All 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  285 

other  elements  of  our  nature  are  called  moral,  only  as 
they  bear  on  this,  the  overruling  moral  principle.  The 
consciousness  just  described  constitutes  the  third  or  moral 
stage  of  human  nature.  Not  that  the  second  and  the 
third  stages  occur  in  every  man  in  the  order  now  laid 
down.  A  man  may  become  alive  to  the  moral  law,  and 
to  its  obligation  over  him,  before  he  has  conceived  of 
self-interest  as  an  end  of  action.  But  the  order  here 
given  marks  the  relative  worth  of  the  respective  prin- 
ciples, and  the  culmination  of  our  nature  in  that  one 
which  is  its  proper  end. 

It  would  be  easy  to  show  how  all  the  moral  systems 
have  taken  their  character  from  giving  to  one  or  other 
of  these  three  principles  of  action,  the  emotional,  the 
prudential,  and  the  moral,  a  special  prominence,  invest- 
ing some  one  element  or  some  particular  disposition  of 
all  the  elements,  with  paramount  sovereignty.  But  I 
must  pass  on  to  notice  a  defect  inherent  in  this  and 
every  attempt  to  map  out  human  nature  into  various 
compartments,  —  a  defect  which,  when  unperceived,  as 
it  mostly  is,  distorts,  if  it  does  not  falsify,  the  whole 
work  of  the  analysts.  Even  if  the  most  exact  enumer- 
ation, the  most  minute  analysis  could  be  made,  would 
this  give  all  that  makes  up  character  ?  It  is  a  common 
mistake  with  psychologists  to  suppose  that  it  does. 
They  fancy  they  can  grasp  life  by  victorious  analysis. 
There  can  be  no  greater,  though  there  is  no  more  com- 
mon delusion.  What  is  it  that  analysis,  the  most  per- 
fect, accomplishes?  It  gives  the  various  elements 
which  go  to  make  up  a  moral  fact,  or  it  may  be  said  to 
give  the  various  points  of  view  which  a  phenomenon  or 
group  of  phenomena  presents.  But  is  this  all  ?  Is 
there  nothing  more  than  what  is  found  in  the  analyst's 
crucible  ?  The  analysis,  that  is,  the  unloosing,  the  tak- 
ing down  into  pieces  of  the  bundle,  may  be  complete ; 


286  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

but  where  is  the  power  of  synthesis,  the  bond  which 
lield  the  bundle  together  ?  Where  is  the  life  which 
pervaded  the  several  elements,  and  made  of  them  one 
entire  power  ?  It  is  gone,  it  has  escaped  your  touch. 
Can  the  botanist  after  he  has  divided  a  flower  into  its 
component  parts,  pistil,  stamen,  anther,  petals,  calyx, 
put  them  together  once  more,  and  restore  the  life  and 
beauty  that  were  there?  This  is  the  main  error  of 
psychologists.  They  fancy  that  when  they  have  com- 
pleted their  analysis  they  have  done  all,  not  consider- 
ing that  it  is  just  the  most  unique  and  mysterious  part 
of  the  problem  which  has  eluded  them.  What  the  late 
Professor  Ferrier  shows  so  well  against  the  psychol- 
ogists, that  the  "  ego,"  the  one  great  mystery,  ever 
escapes  them,  the  same  takes  place  in  the  analysis  of 
every  other  living  entity.  In  a  human  character,  when 
you  have  done  your  best  to  exhaust  it,  to  give  its  whole 
contents,  that  which  is  its  finer  breath,  has  it  not  es- 
caped you  ?  must  not  you  be  content  to  own  that  there 
remains  behind  a  something  "  which  no  language  may 
declare  ?  "  What  end  then  serves  analysis  ?  By 
bringing  out,  separately  and  in  detail,  each  side,  aspect, 
or  element  in  any  problem,  and  fixing  the  eye  on  each 
successively,  it  helps  to  give  distinctness  and  exactness 
to  our  whole  conception  of  it.  But  it  is  only  the  mul- 
tiplicity that  is  thus  given  ;  the  unity  or  rather  the 
unifying  power  still  remains  ungrasped.  And  if  we  are 
to  see  character  in  its  truth,  we  must,  after  analysis  has 
done  its  work,  by  an  act  of  philosophic  imagination  re- 
make the  synthesis,  put  the  elements  together  again. 
If  we  do  this  rightly,  something  will  reappear  in  the 
synthesis  which  had  disappeared  in  the  analysis,  and 
that  something  will  be  just  the  idiosyncratic  element — 
the  central  creative  energy — which  individualizes  the 
whole  man.  To  a  moral  philosophy  which  shall  give 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  287 

the  truth,  this  synthesis  is  even  more  essential  than  the 
analysis. 

Of  the  many  questions  which  have  been,  and  may 
still  be  asked  respecting  virtuous  character,  there  is 
one,  not  the  least  important,  and  certainly  the  most 
practical  of  any,  which  has  received  less  attention  from 
moralists  than  it  deserves.  It  is  this :  Supposing 
that  we  have  settled  rightly  what  the  true  ideal  of  char- 
acter is,  how  are  we  to  attain  to  it  ?  what  is  the  dy- 
namic power  in  the  moral  life  ?  what  is  that  which  shall 
impel  a  man  to  persevere  in  aiming  at  this  ideal,  shall 
carry  him  through  all  that  hinders  him  outwardly  and 
inwardly,  and  enable  him,  in  some  measure  at  least, 
to  realize  it  ?  Other  questions,  it  would  seem,  more 
stimulate  speculation,  none  has  more  immediate  bearing 
on  man's  moral  interests.  For  confused  and  imperfect 
as  men's  notions  of  right  may  be,  it  is  not  knowledge 
that  they  lack,  it  is  the  will  and  the  power  to  do. 
Change  one  word,  and  all  men  will  make  the  apostle's 
confession  their  own :  "  To  know  is  present  with  me, 
but  how  to  perform  that  which  is  good  I  find  not." 

It  is  to  this  subject,  then,  the  dynamic  or  motive 
power  in  moral  life,  that  I  would  turn  attention  in  the 
sequel.  Under  the  word  motive  three  things  are  in- 
cluded, which  are  usually  distinguished  thus,  —  the 
objective  truth  or  reality,  which,  when  apprehended  and 
desired,  determines  to  action ;  the  mental  act  of  appre- 
hending this  object ;  and  the  desire  or  affection  which 
is  awakened  by  the  object  so  apprehended.  To  this 
last  step,  which  immediately  precedes  the  act  of  will, 
and  is  said  to  determine  it,  the  term  "  motive  "  is  often 
exclusively  applied.  But  in  the  present  inquiry  into 
the  dynamic  or  motive  power,  I  shall  use  the  word  in  a 
wider  sense,  including  all  the  three  elements  in  the  pro- 
cess, and  applying  it  more  especially  to  that  one  whioh 


288  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

is  the  starting  point,  namely,  the  objective  truth  or 
reality  which,  addressing  the  understanding,  and  stirring 
the  affections,  ultimately  sways  the  will.  And  the 
question  I  ask  is,  What  is  that  objective  truth,  or  class 
of  truths,  which  determines  the  will  in  a  way  which 
can  rightly  be  called  moral  ?  What  are  those  truths 
which,  apprehended  and  entering  into  a  man,  enable 
him  to  rise  into  that  state  of  being  which  is  truly  virtu- 
ous or  moral  ? 

In  doing  so  it  will  be  well  to  ask  first,  what  answers 
to  this  question  may  be  found  in  the  works  of  some  of 
the  great  masters  of  moral  wisdom.  In  his  survey  of 
moral  systems,  Adam  Smith  remarks  that  there  are  two 
main  questions  with  which  moralists  have  to  deal.  The 
first  is,  What  is  virtue  ?  or,  more  concretely,  In  what 
consists  the  virtuous  character,  —  that  temper  and  con- 
duct in  a  man  which  deserves  to  win  the  esteem  of  his 
fellow-men?  The  second  is,  What  is  the  faculty  in  us 
by  which  we  discern  and  approve  the  virtuous  char- 
acter?—  in  other  words,  By  what  power  do  we  dis- 
tinguish between  right  actions  and  praise  them,  and 
wrong  actions  and  blame  them  ?  Of  the  question  which 
I  propose  now  to  consider,  the  dynamic  power  which 
enables  us  to  do  the  right,  it  is  remarkable  that  Smith 
makes  no  mention.  In  discussing  this,  which  I  may 
call  the  third  mam  question  of  morals,  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  advert  to  the  former  two,  but  shall  do  so  no 
further  than  as  they  bear  on  the  third,  which  is  our 
more  immediate  concern. 

Smith  has  classified  philosophers  mainly  by  the 
answers  they  give  to  the  first  of  the  three  questions. 
Some,  he  remarks,  place  virtue  in  the  proper  balance 
and  harmony  of  all  the  faculties  and  affections  which 
make  up  our  human  nature,  some  in  the  judicious  pur- 
suit of  our  own  happiness,  a  third  set  in  benevolence, 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  289 

that  is,  in  the  affections  which  seek  the  happiness  of 
others.  The  first  of  these  three  answers  to  the  great 
question,  What  is  the  virtuous  character  ?  has  been 
sanctioned  by  the  greatest  names  of  past  time,  —  by 
Plato,  by  Aristotle,  by  the  Stoics,  and  by  Bishop 
Butler.  Let  us  glance  at  their  theories,  with  a  view 
to  find  what  help  there  is  in  them  as  to  the  dynamic 
power  we  are  in  search  of. 

With  Plato  originated  the  idea  that  virtue  is  a 
proper  balance  or  harmony  of  the  various  powers  of 
the  soul ;  and  though  it  has  often  since  been  elaborated 
into  detail,  it  has  never  been  put  in  a  form  so  beautiful 
and  attractive.  It  is  one  of  those  great  though  simple 
thoughts  first  uttered  by  that  father  of  philosophy  which 
have  taken  hold  of  the  world,  and  which  it  will  never 
let  go.  Repeated  in  our  ordinary  language,  it  sounds 
a  commonplace  ;  but  in  the  Greek  of  "  The  Republic " 
it  stands  fresh  with  unfading  beauty.  He  divides  the 
soul,  as  is  well  known,  into  three  elements,  —  desire, 
passion  or  courage,  and  intellect ;  and  this  division, 
variously  modified,  has  held  its  ground  in  philosophy 
till  now.  The  SIKCUOO-WI?,  or  righteousness  of  the  in- 
dividual soul,  he  places  in  a  proper  balance  or  harmony 
of  these  three  elements,  in  which  each  holds  that  posi- 
tion which  rightfully  belongs  to  it.  The  state  is  the 
counterpart  of  the  individual  soul,  and  its  Si/catoo-uvr;,  or 
right  condition,  is  attained  when  the  three  orders  of 
guardians,  auxiliaries,  and  producers,  answering  to 
reason,  passion,  appetite  respectively,  stand  in  their 
proper  order  of  precedence.  This  is  the  philosophy 
which  Shakespeare  makes  Ulysses  speak.  "  In  the 
observance  of  degree,  priority,  and  place,"  stands  — 

"  The  unity  and  married  calm  of  states." 

"  How  could  communities, 
Degrees  in  schools,  and  brotherhoods  in  cities, 
19 


290  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

Peaceful  commerce  from  dividable  shores, 

The  primogenitive  and  due  of  birth, 

Prerogative  of  age,  crowns,  sceptres,  laurels, 

But  by  degree,  stand  in  authentic  place? 

Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string, 

And,  hark,  what  discord  follows !  each  thing  meets 

In  mere  oppugnancy." 

The  man  is  righteous  in  whom  each  of  the  three  ele- 
ments holds  its  proper  place,  and  does  its  proper  work ; 
and  this  inward  harmony  expresses  itself  in  an  outward 
life  which  is  every  way  righteous.  The  power  which 
discerns  the  right  and  orders  all  the  elements  of  the 
soul,  is  intellect  or  reason,  whose  right  it  is  to  rule. 
But  how  is  this  harmony  of  soul,  once  discerned,  to  be 
reached,  maintained,  made  energetic  ?  Plato,  of  philos- 
ophers the  least  mechanical,  the  most  dynamic,  the 
most  full  of  powers  of  life,  cannot  have  left  this  ques- 
tion wholly  untouched,  though  he  has  not  dealt  with  it 
systematically.  His  hope  was  that  this  may  be  done 
in  the  state  by  educating  the  guardians,  who  are  philos- 
ophers ;  in  the  individual,  by  educating  the  reason, 
which  is  the  sovereign  principle,  through  continual 
study  of  real  truth,  continual  contemplation  of  the  ideal 
good.  The  highest  object  of  all  is  the  Essential  Form 
or  Idea  of  the  Good  which  imparts  to  the  objects 
known  the  truth  that  is  in  them,  and  to  the  knowing 
mind  the  faculty  of  knowing  truth.  This  idea  of  the 
good  is  the  cause  of  science  and  of  truth.  It  gives  to 
all  objects  of  knowledge  not  only  the  power  of  being 
known,  but  their  being  and  existence.  The  good  is  not 
existence,  but  is  above  and  beyond  existence  in  dignity 
and  power.  "  The  purpose  of  education,"  he  says,  "  is 
to  turn  the  whole  soul  round,  in  order  that  the  eye  of 
the  soul,  or  reason,  may  be  directed  to  the  right  quarter. 
But  education  does  not  generate  or  infuse  any  new 
principle ;  it  only  guides  or  directs  a  principle  already 
in  existence."  So  far  in  "  The  Eepublic." 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  291 

Again,  in  the  famous  myth  of  the  Phaedrus  where 
reason  is  imaged  by  a  charioteer  driving  a  chariot 
drawn  by  two  horses,  one  high-spirited  and  aspiring, 
the  other  earthward  groveling,  Plato  makes  the  char- 
ioteer able  just  to  raise  his  head,  and  look  out  for  a 
moment  on  that  super-celestial  place,  which  is  above 
heaven's  vault,  and  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  realities 
that  are  there,  —  the  colorless,  formless,  intangible 
substance  on  which  the  gods  gaze  without  let  or 
hindrance.  The  glimpse,  which  the  better  human 
souls  thus  get,  fills  them  with  love  of  the  reality. 
They  see  and  feast  on  it,  and  are  nourished  by  it.  It 
is  this  idea  or  essence  of  the  good,  the  cause  of  exist- 
ence and  knowledge,  the  vital  centre  in  the  world  of 
thought,  as  the  sun  is  in  the  world  of  sight,  which  is 
the  object  of  contemplation  to  the  reason.  "And 
reason,"  Plato  says,  "  looking  upwards,  and  carried  to 
the  true  Above,  realizes  a  delight  in  wisdom,  unknown 
to  the  other  parts  of  our  nature."  This  idea  of  good 
is  the  centre  at  once  of  morals  and  politics,  the  right- 
ful, influencing  power  in  human  action.  It  should  be 
ever  present  to  the  mind  ;  a  full  philosophic  conscious- 
ness of  it  should  be  the  ruling  power  in  everything. 
Nor  is  it  an  object  merely  for  the  pure  reason,  but  for 
the  imagination  also,  and  an  attractive  power  for  the 
higher  affections  which  side  with  reason.  This  glimpse, 
then,  vouchsafed  to  none  but  the  purest  in  their  purest 
hour,  may  be  supposed  to  be  to  them  an  inspiration 
that  will  not  desert  them  all  their  lives  after.  It  will 
make  them  hunger  and  thirst  after  truth  and  righteous- 
ness, and  despise,  in  comparison  of  these,  all  lower 
goods.  So  far  this  intuition  of  the  good  will  be  a 
dynamic  power.  But  this  master-vision,  if  it  be  pos- 
sible at  rare  intervals,  for  the  select  souls  of  earth,  and 
if  it  were  adequate  to  sustain  them  in  the  pursuit  of 


292  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

goodness,  is  at  best  a  privilege  for  the  few,  not  an 
inheritance  for  mankind.  And  Plato  did  not  dream 
of  it  as  more.  From  the  mass  of  men  he  turns  in 
despair,  and  leaves  them  to  their  swine-troughs.  He 
did  not  conceive  that  for  all  men  there  was  an  ideal, 
or  any  power  sufficient  to  raise  them  towards  it.  In 
Plato,  then,  the  moral  dynamic  force  we  are  seeking  is 
in  small  measure,  if  at  all  to  be  found. 

Shall  we  find  it  in  Aristotle  ?  Although  the  "  Eth- 
ics "  contains  more  than  one  division  of  human  nature, 
which  helped  forward  psychological  analysis,  yet  the 
whole  system  is  not  determined  by  any  such  division, 
but  by  certain  leading  objective  ideas.  Foremost 
among  these  is  that  of  an  end  of  action.  There  is  an 
absolute  end  of  all  action,  an  end  in  itself,  and  man's 
constitution  is  framed  conformably  to  this  end,  and  in 
realizing  it  lies  the  total  satisfaction  of  his  nature,  his 
well-being.  Everything  in  nature  has  its  end,  and 
fulfills  it  unconsciously,  but  a  moral  being  must  fulfill 
his  end  not  blindly,  but  with  conscious  purpose.  The 
end  in  itself  consciously  chosen  and  pursued,  this  is 
Aristotle's  fundamental  ethical  idea. 

The  end  or  the  good  for  man  is  a  vivid  conscious- 
ness of  life,  according  to  its  highest  excellence,  or  in 
the  exercise  of  its  highest  powers.  Sir  Alexander 
Grant,  in  his  very  able  dissertation  on  eve/ryeia,  shows, 
with  great  felicity,  how  Aristotle  regarded  man's  chief 
good  as  "  nothing  external  to  him,  but  as  existing  in 
man  and  for  man  ;  existing  in  the  evocation,  the  vivid- 
ness, and  the  fruition  of  his  powers.  It  is  the  con- 
scious vitality  of  the  life  and  the  mind  in  the  exercise 
of  its  highest  faculties.  This,  however,  not  as  a  per- 
manent condition,  but  one  that  arises  hi  us,  oftenest 
like  a  thrill  of  joy,  a  momentary  intuition.  Were  it 
abiding,  we  should  be  as  God."  In  order  to  find  in 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  293 

which  part  of  man  this  highest  excellence  is  to  be 
found,  Aristotle  has  recourse  to  a  psychological  division, 
not  of  his  own  making,  but  apparently  well  known  at 
the  time.  He  divides  the  internal  principle  (^xn)  into 
the  physical  or  vegetative  part,  the  semi-rational  or 
appetitive,  and  the  purely  rational.  The  first  has  no 
share  in  human  excellence,  in  the  second  lies  moral 
excellence  or  virtue,  in  the  third  lies  intellectual  excel- 
lence. Aristotle  here  founds  the  distinction  between 
moral  and  intellectual,  beyond  which  we  have  not  yet 
got.  Practical  moral  excellence  has  its  seat  in  the 
second  division  of  our  nature,  in  the  passions  which, 
though  not  purely  rational,  have  communion  with  rea 
son.  And  though  Aristotle,  in  the  end,  gives  to  the 
purely  intellectual  excellence,  which  consists  in  philo- 
sophical contemplation,  a  higher  place  than  he  assigns 
to  the  exercise  of  the  moral  virtues,  yet  it  is  of  these 
he  chiefly  treats,  and  with  these  we  have  now  to  do. 
Moral  virtue,  then,  he  defines  as  consisting  in  a  de- 
veloped state  of  the  moral  purpose,  in  a  balance  rela- 
tive to  ourselves,  which  is  determined  by  reason.  This 
is  Aristotle's  famous  doctrine,  that  virtue  is  a  mean,  an 
even  balance,  a  harmony  of  man's  powers.  It  is  a 
mean  as  exhibited  in  particular  actions,  and  also  a  mean 
or  balance  struck  between  opposite  excesses  of  feeling. 
Feelings,  passions,  actions,  are  the  raw  materials  out 
of  which  character  is  to  be  wrought  by  aiming  at  a 
balance.  Right  reason  is  the  power  which  determines 
what  the  mean  or  balance  is.  It  reviews  the  whole 
circumstances  of  the  case,  strikes  the  balance,  appre- 
hends the  rule  by  which  the  irregular  feelings  may  be 
reduced  to  that  regularity  in  which  virtue  consists, 
virtue  as  well  in  particular  acts  as  in  habits,  and  in 
the  whole  character.  The  mean  is  not  a  "  hard  and 
fast  line,"  but  a  balance  struck  anew  in  each  particular 


294  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

case,  from  a  consideration  of  all  the  circumstances. 
The  virtuous  character  is  slowly  elaborated  by  a  rep- 
etition of  virtuous  acts  ;  acts,  that  is,  midway  between 
extremes.  And  then  as  to  knowing  what  the  real 
mean  is,  man  must  begin  and  act  from  his  own  percep- 
tions, such  as  they  are.  His  own  individual  reason 
must  be  the  guide  he  starts  with,  but  he  is  not  therefore 
shut  up  in  subjectivity.  He  has  a  surer  standard  than 
individual  judgment  to  appeal  to,  even  the  universal 
moral  sentiment  of  men.  Or  rather  in  the  wise  man, 
the  ideally  perfect  man,  he  has  a  kind  of  objective  con- 
science, an  embodiment  of  moral  law;  and  he  judges 
according  as  he  knows  that  this  ideally  wise  man 
would  judge.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  theory  of  virtue 
and  the  virtuous  character,  but  no  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion, What  is  the  motive  power  which  shall  propel  men 
towards  this  ideal  ?  Indeed,  full  though  his  treatise  is 
of  wise  and  penetrating  practical  remarks  on  character, 
this  subject  is  nowhere  discussed  by  Aristotle  ;  but  if 
one  were  to  gather  from  him  an  answer  for  one's  self, 
it  might  perhaps  be  something  like  this :  — 

Reason  of  itself  cannot  reach  the  will  and  mould 
the  choice.  Yet  reason  and  those  emotions  which  are 
most  obedient  to  it,  act  and  react  on  each  other.  In 
time,  by  the  law  of  habit,  they  blend  together  and 
make  up  a  moral  habit  of  soul,  which  restrains  and 
directs  all  the  lower  impulses.  When  intellect  and  the 
more  generous  emotions  combine  in  seeking  one  end, 
and  by  repeated  acts  form  a  habit,  the  result  is  the 
perfected  moral  judgment  or  practical  wisdom,  which 
itself  is  both  a  guide  and  a  sufficient  motive  power  to 
impel  the  soul  steadily  to  good.  &p6vr)<ris  is  with 
Aristotle  the  perfection  of  the  moral  intellect.  He 
does  not  say  that  it  is  an  interpenetration  of  the  moral 
with  the  intellectual  side  of  human  nature,  but  that 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  295 

there  is  an  inseparable  connection  between  this  prac- 
tical wisdom  (^poj-Tjo-ts)  and  moral  virtue.  In  his 
view,  these  two  sides,  if  not  blended  in  one  habit,  are 
brought  much  closer  together  than  in  Plato,  and  that, 
both  hi  the  discerning  and  in  the  ruling  moral  fac- 
ulty. 

The  elaboration  of  the  virtuous  character  by  the 
formation  of  good  habits  is  a  long  and  slow  process. 
Does  Aristotle  point  to  any  spring  of  inspiration  which 
may  carry  a  man  through  it?  Plato  after  his  own 
fashion  does.  Far  off  and  inaccessible  as  his  idea  of 
the  good  may  be,  there  is  something  in  it,  and  in  his 
enthusiasm  for  it,  which  must  kindle,  as  by  contagion, 
all  but  the  dullest.  But  hi  Aristotle,  though  at  every 
turn  you  meet  insights  into  human  nature  which  you 
feel  to  be  penetratingly  true,  you  are,  after  all,  left 
to  evolve  the  virtuous  habit  out  of  your  own  inward 
resources.  There  is  hi  him  no  hint  of  anything  which 
may  come  home  to  a  man  inwardly,  and  supplement 
his  moral  weakness  by  a  strength  beyond  his  own. 
All  that  he  suggests  is  of  a  merely  external  kind. 
Besides  moral  teaching,  such  as  himself  and  other  mor- 
alists give,  he  bids  men  look  for  help  to  such  institu- 
tions, either  domestic  or  political,  as  may  assist  them 
hi  the  cultivation  of  virtue. 

Amongst  moderns,  Bishop  Butler,  as  is  well  known, 
has  been  the  chief  expounder  of  the  idea  which  origi- 
nated with  Plato,  that  the  virtuous  character  consists 
in  a  harmony  of  the  different  powers  of  man.  This, 
the  leading  idea  of  his  sermons,  has  so  worked  itself 
through  his  teaching  into  modern  thought,  that  it  need 
not  now  be  dwelt  on.  A  system,  a  constitution,  an 
economy,  in  which  the  various  parts  —  appetites,  pas- 
sions, particular  affections  —  are  all  ranged  hi  due  gra- 
dation under  the  supreme  conscience  ;  this  is  his  doc- 


296  TEE  MORAL   MOTIVE  POWER. 

trine  of  man.  In  working  out  this  idea,  whfle  the 
great  Bishop  has  contributed  much  of  his  own,  espe- 
cially the  masterly  analysis  by  which  he  proves  the 
existence  in  man  of  originally  unselfish,  as  well  as  of 
self-regarding  affections,  he  recalls  here  the  teaching 
of  Plato,  there  that  of  Aristotle.  Though  he  deals 
entirely  with  individual  man,  he  illustrates  his  idea  of 
gradation  and  moral  harmony  by  Plato's  image  of  a 
civil  constitution,  with  its  various  ranks  subordinated 
under  one  supreme  authority.  On  the  other  hand, 
his  idea  of  conscience  comes  much  nearer  to  that  of 
Aristotle's  ^por^o-is  than  that  of  Plato's  reason.  But 
in  Butler's  "  conscience,"  there  is  a  much  more  dis- 
tinct presence  of  the  emotional  or  moral  element, 
while  the  notion  of  an  obligatory  power  or  right  to 
command,  so  characteristic  of  modern  as  distinguished 
from  ancient  thought,  comes  strongly  out.  But  para- 
mount as  is  this  idea  with  Butler,  it  is  strange  that 
whenever  we  go  beyond  it,  and  ask  for  a  reason  why 
conscience  should  be  supreme,  he  fails  us.  Entrenched 
within  his  psychological  facts,  he  refuses  to  go  beyond 
them.  Ask  what  is  the  rule  of  right,  the  canon  by 
which  conscience  decides,  he  replies,  Man  is  a  law  to 
himself;  every  plain  honest  man  who  wishes  it,  will 
find  the  rule  of  right  within  himself,  and  will  decide 
agreeably  to  truth  and  virtue.  This  is  like  saying 
that  conscience  decides  by  the  rule  of  conscience.  If 
asked,  Why  should  I  obey  conscience  ?  Butler  can 
but  assume  that  conscience  "  carries  its  own  authority 
with  it,  that  it  is  our  natural  guide,"  that  it  belongs 
to  our  condition  of  being,  and  therefore  it  is  our  duty 
to  obey  it.  If  a  further  sanction  is  sought,  he  seems 
to  find  it  in  the  fact  of  experience,  that  the  path  of 
duty  and  that  of  interest  coincide,  "  meaning  by  interest 
happiness  and  satisfaction."  If  there  be  exceptions, 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  297 

these  will  be  set  right  in  the  final  distribution  of  things. 
"  Duty  and  interest  are  perfectly  coincident,  for  the 
most  part  here,  entirely  hereafter ;  this  being  implied 
in  the  very  notion  of  a  good  and  perfect  administration 
of  things."  In  this  coincidence  of  duty  and  interest, 
so  far  fulfilled  in  our  present  experience,  and  ultimately 
made  sure  by  the  existence  of  a  Moral  Governor  of 
the  world,  seems  to  lie  a  great  part  of  the  dynamic 
power  in  Butler's  system.  To  this  may  be  added  his 
remark,  in  the  spirit  of  Aristotle,  that  obedience  to 
conscience,  when  it  has  grown  into  a  habitual  temper, 
becomes  a  choice  and  a  delight 

But  in  the  sermons  on  the  Love  of  God  he  strikes 
another  strain.  He  there  demonstrates  to  an  unbe- 
lieving age  that  the  affection  he  speaks  of  is  no  dream, 
but  a  most  sober  certainty.  For  as  we  have  certain 
lower  affections  which  find  sufficing  objects  in  the 
world  around  us,  so  we  have  higher  faculties  and  moral 
emotions,  which  find  but  inadequate  objects  in  the 
scattered  rays  of  created  wisdom,  power,  and  goodness 
which  this  world  contains.  To  these  faculties  and 
affections  God  himself  is  the  only  adequate  supply. 
They  can  find  their  full  satisfaction  only  in  the  con- 
templation of  that  righteousness  which  is  an  everlast- 
ing righteousness,  of  that  goodness  in  the  sovereign 
mind  which  gave  birth  to  the  universe.  This  is  But- 
ler's highest  doctrine,  which  he  sets  forth  with  a  calm 
suppressed  enthusiasm  almost  too  deep  for  words. 
This  contemplation  can  create  the  highest  form  of 
aappiness,  but  it  is  not  for  this  that  it  is  sought. 
It  would  cease  to  be  the  ultimate  end  that  it  is,  if 
sought  for  the  sake  of  happiness,  or  for  any  end  but 
itself.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  once  realized, 
this  would  be,  as  we  shall  see,  hi  the  highest  measure, 
the  dynamic  of  the  soul. 


298  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

Butler's  search  for  virtue  is  wholly  through  psychol- 
ogy. Plato  and  Aristotle,  though  they  do  not  begin 
with  it,  very  soon  have  recourse  to  it.  Kant,  on  the 
other  hand,  when  seeking  for  principles  of  morality, 
disdains  to  fumble  after  them  among  the  debris  of  ob- 
servation and  experience,  but  searches  for  them  wholly 
a  priori  among  the  pure  ideas  of  the  reason.  "We  find 
nothing  in  him  about  the  virtuous  character  consisting 
in  a  harmony  of  the  mental  elements,  although  it  might 
be  said  that  his  idea  of  virtue  is  a  will  in  harmony  with 
the  moral  universe.  Laying  his  hand  at  once  on  the 
individual  will,  and  intensifying  to  its  highest  power  the 
idea  of  responsibility,  he  starts  with  the  assertion  that 
the  only  real  and  absolute  good  in  the  whole  world  is  a 
good  will.  And  a  good  will  is  one  purely  and  entirely 
determined  by  the  moral  law.  This  law  is  not  a  law 
generalized  out  of  human  experience,  binding  therefore 
only  within  the  range  of  that  experience,  but  a  law 
which  transcends  it ;  is  wide  as  the  universe,  and  ex- 
tends in  its  essential  principle  to  all  beings  who  can 
think  it.  Man,  according  to  Kant,  shut  in  on  every 
side  of  his  being  to  a  merely  relative  knowledge,  in  the 
moral  law  for  the  first  time  escapes  out  into  absolute 
truth,  'truth  valid  not  only  for  all  men,  but  for  ah1  intel- 
ligents.  Human  conscience  is  nothing  but  the  entering 
into  the  individual  of  this  objective  law — the  witness, 
as  it  has  been  called,  that  the  will  or  self  has  come  into 
subjection  to,  and  harmony  with,  the  universal  reason, 
which  is  the  will  of  God. 

From  the  reality  of  this  law  Kant  deduces  three 
great  moral  ideas.  First,  since  it  commands  impera- 
tively, unconditionally,  we  must  be  able  to  obey  it. 
Freedom,  therefore,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  follows 
from  the  consciousness  of  an  imperative  law  of  duty. 
Again,  in  this  phenomenal  life,  we  see  the  will  that 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  299 

would  obey  duty  hindered  by  many  obstacles,  crushed 
by  many  miseries,  unrewarded  with  that  happiness 
which  rightfully  belongs  to  it.  There  must,  therefore, 
be  a  life  beyond  this  phenomenal  one,  where  the  hin- 
drances shall  be  removed,  where  duty  and  the  will  to 
obey  it  shall  have  full  play,  where  virtue  and  happi- 
ness, here  often  sundered,  shall  at  last  meet.  That  is, 
there  must  be  an  immortality.  Lastly,  reason  repre- 
sents to  us  the  moral  will  as  worthy  of  happiness.  But 
we  see  that  here  they  do  coincide.  Nature  does  not 
effect  such  a  meeting ;  man  cannot  constrain  it.  There 
must  be  somewhere  a  power  above  nature,  stronger 
than  man,  who  will  uphold  the  moral  order,  will  bring 
about  the  union  between  virtue  and  happiness,  between 
guilt  and  misery.  And  this  being  is  God.  Such  is 
Kant's  practical  proof  of  the  great  triad  of  moral  truths 
in  which  the  morally -minded  man  believes,  —  Freedom, 
Immortality,  and  God.  The  necessity  for  the  belief  in 
these  arises  out  of  the  reality  of  the  moral  law. 

To  Kant's  ideal  of  duty  it  matters  nothing,  though 
it  is  contradicted  by  experience,  though  not  one  in- 
stance could  be  shown  of  a  character  which  acted  on, 
or  even  of  a  single  action  which  emanated  from,  the 
pure  unmingled  moral  law.  The  question  is  not  what 
experience  shows,  but  what  reason  ordains.  And 
though  this  ideal  of  moral  excellence  may  never  yet 
have  been  actualized,  yet  none  the  less  it  remains  a 
true  ideal  —  the  one  standard  which  the  moral  judg- 
ment of  man  approves,  however  in  practice  he  may  fall 
beneath  it.  On  this  pure  idea  of  the  moral  law  Kant 
would  build  a  science  of  ethics,  valid  not  for  man  only, 
but  for  all  intelligent  beings.  Applied  to  man,  it  would 
"need  to  be  supplemented  by  an  anthropology,  and  would 
then  stand  to  pure  ethics,  as  mixed  stand  to  pure  math- 
ematics. 


800  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

As  to  the  relation  in  which,  according  to  Kant,  the 
objective  moral  law  stands  to  the  human  conscience, 
there  is  a  very  ingenious  speculation  of  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Ferrier,  which  may  illustrate  it.  He  asks  the 
question  whether  it  is  the  existence  of  our  minds  which 
generates  knowledge,  or  the  entering  of  knowledge  into 
us  which  constitutes  our  minds  ?  Is  the  radical  and 
stable  element  Mind,  and  is  Intelligence  the  secondary 
and  derivative  one  ?  Professor  Ferrier's  reply  is,  that 
"  It  is  not  man's  mind  which  puts  him  in  possession  of 
ideas,  but  it  is  ideas,  that  is  knowledge,  which  first  puts 
him  in  possession  of  a  mind."  The  mind  does  not 
make  ideas,  but  ideas  make  mind.  In  like  manner,  ap- 
plying the  same  principle  to  poetic  inspiration,  he  shows 
that  it  is  not  the  poetic  mind  which  creates  the  ideas 
of  beauty  and  sublimity  which  it  utters,  but  those  ideas 
which,  entering  into  a  man,  create  the  poetic  mind. 
And  so  in  moral  truth,  it  is  not  our  moral  nature  which 
makes  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  but  the 
existence  of  right  and  wrong,  apprehension  of  them  by 
us,  which  create  our  moral  nature.  "  I  have  no  moral 
nature,"  he  says,  "  before  the  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong  is  revealed  to  me.  My  moral  nature  exists 
subsequently  to  this  revelation.  At  any  rate,  I  acquire 
a  moral  nature,  if  not  after,  yet  in  the  very  act  which 
brings  me  the  distinction.  The  distinction  exists  as  an 
immutable  institution  of  God  prior  to  the  existence  of 
our  minds.  And  it  is  the  knowledge  of  this  distinction 
which  forms  the  prime  constituent,  not  of  our  moral  ac- 
quisitions, but  of  our  moral  existence."  This  very  in- 
genious speculation,  which  is  in  the  very  spirit  of  the 
Platonic  philosophy,  may  serve  to  illustrate  Kant's  view 
of  the  priority  and  independence  of  the  moral  law  to 
our  apprehension  of  it. 

Where,  theu,  is  the  motive   power  in  the  Kantian 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  PO WER.  30 1 

ethics  ?  Kant's  answer  is  plain.  It  is  the  naked  rep- 
resentation of  duty,  the  pure  moral  law.  And  this,  ac- 
cording to  Kant,  exerts  so  strong  a  motive  power  over 
the  will,  that  it  is  only  when  a  man  has  acknowledged 
its  obligatory  force,  and  obeyed  it,  that  he  learns  for 
the  first  time  his  own  free  causal  power,  his  inde- 
pendence of  all  merely  sensitive  determinators.  The 
naked  moral  law,  defecated,  as  he  speaks,  of  all  emo- 
tions of  the  sensory,  is  the  one  only  dynamic  which  he 
admits  as  truly  moral.  This  acting  on  the  will,  with 
no  emotion  interposed,  will  alone,  he  insists,  place 
morality  on  a  true  foundation,  will  create  a  higher 
speculative  ethics,  and  a  higher  practical  morality,  and 
will  awaken  deeper  moral  sentiments,  than  any  system 
of  ethics  compounded  now  of  ideal,  now  of  actual  ele- 
ments, can  do. 

In  the  rigidity  with  which  he  holds  that  in  pure 
moral  action  the  law  shall  alone  sway  the  will,  that  all 
emotion,  love  the  purest,  pity  the  tenderest,  shall  have 
no  place,  Kant  is  ultra-stoical.  The  representation  of 
duty,  when  embraced,  will  awaken  reverence  for  the  law, 
and  this  is  a  pure  moral  emotion.  But  in  determining 
the  act,  the  stern  imperative  must  stand  alone,  and  re- 
fuse all  aid  from  emotion  or  affection.  For  these  there 
is  no  room  in  a  pure  morality,  except  as  the  submissive 
slaves  of  duty. 

In  making  this  high  demand  it  should  be  remembered 
that  Kant  is  setting  forth,  not  an  actual  state  which  he 
expects  to  find  hi  human  nature,  but  an  ideal,  which 
nevertheless,  beca\ise  it  is  an  ideal,  affects  human  nature 
more  powerfully  than  any  maxim  merely  generalized 
from  experience.  And  perhaps  if  the  moral  idea  is  to 
be  set  forth  hi  its  native  strength  and  dignity,  it  is  well 
that  it  should  be  exhibited  thus  nakedly.  It  does  come 
shorn  of  much  of  its  power,  when  so  largely  mingled,  as 
:*  ;s  hi  Butler»  with  considerations  of  mere  urudence. 


502  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

As  has  been  remarked,  however,  even  Kant,  much  as 
he  desired  to  get  rid  of  experience  in  constructing  his 
morality,  was  not  able  to  do  so.  He  was  obliged  to 
come  to  experience  before  he  could  give  content  to  his 
moral  law  —  "  So  act,  that  thou  couldst  consistently  will 
the  principle  of  thy  action  to  become  law  universal  for 
all  intelligents."  So  Kant  shaped  his  imperative.  This 
is  not  very  unlike  Austin's  utilitarian  question,  "  What 
would  be  the  probable  effect  on  the  general  happiness  or 
good,  if  similar  acts  were  general  or  frequent  ?  "  Again, 
as  we  saw,  he  is  obliged  to  supplement  his  moral  life 
here  with  the  belief  of  a  future  life,  where  virtue  and 
happiness  shall  be  one,  where  the  ideal  shall  become  act- 
ual ;  thus  proving  that  human  feelings  cannot  to  the  end 
be  banished  from  a  moral  system,  that  of  happiness  some 
account  must  be  taken.  And  yet  Kant  is  right  in  giv- 
ing to  such  considerations  a  subordinate,  not  a  primary, 
place. 

From  this  brief  survey  of  the  motive  power  as  it  ap- 
pears in  the  systems  of  some  of  the  most  famous  "  Intu- 
itive Moralists,"  it  would  have  been  interesting,  had 
space  allowed,  to  have  turned  to  the  Utilitarian  theorists, 
and  examined  at  length  the  answers  they  give  to  the 
same  question.  As  it  is,  however,  a  few  remarks  must 
suffice.  This  school  of  philosophers,  as  is  well  known, 
maintains  that  utility,  or  the  tendency  to  promote  pleas- 
ure or  to  cause  pain,  is  the  only  quality  in  actions  which 
makes  them  good  or  bad.  They  hold,  moreover,  that 
pleasure  and  pain  are  the  only  possible  objects  of  choice, 
the  only  motives  which  can  determine  the  will.  These 
are  the  fundamental  tenets  of  that  school  of  philosophers 
represented  by  Epicurus  in  the  ancient  world,  and  by 
Bentham  and  his  followers,  Mr.  Mill  and  Professor 
Bain,  in  our  own  day.  If  by  the  happiness  which  is 
said  to  be  the  end  of  action  is  meant  merely  the  happi- 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  303 

ness  of  one's  self,  the  system  is  one  of  the  plainest  and 
most  intelligible,  the  dynamic  force  is  the  most  obvious, 
and  the  most  surely  operating,  that  can  well  be  imagined. 
But  then  the  course  of  action  dictated  by  the  desire  of 
exclusive  self-interest  is  not,  according  to  the  view  of 
most  men,  a  moral  one  at  all,  and  the  motive  is  not 
moral,  but  selfish.  The  aim  of  all  morality,  truly  con- 
ceived, is  to  furnish  men  with  a  standard  of  action,  and 
a  motive  to  work  by,  which  shall  not  intensify  each 
man's  selfishness,  but  raise  him  ever  more  and  more 
above  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  said  that  it  is  not 
my  own  private  interest,  but  the  general  interest,  which 
I  am  to  aim  at,  this  may  be  said  in  two  distinct  senses  : 
Either  I  am  to  seek  the  greatest  happiness  of  all  men, 
the  sum  total  of  human  interests,  because  an  enlightened 
experience  tells  me  that  my  happiness  is  in  many  ways 
bound  up  with  theirs.  But  the  good  of  others  thus  pur- 
sued is  only  a  means  to  my  own  private  good,  and  I  am 
still  acting  on  a  selfish  motive  —  a  strong  but  not  a 
moral  one.  Or  I  am  to  aim  at  the  general  happiness 
for  its  own  sake,  and  not  merely  as  a  means  to  my  own. 
But  then  I  am  carried  beyond  the  range  of  self-interest, 
and  acknowledge  as  binding  other  motives  which  lie 
outside  of  the  utilitarian  theory.  To  the  question,  Why 
am  I  to  act  with  a  view  to  the  happiness  of  others  ?  the 
utilitarian  can,  on  his  own  principles,  give  no  other  an- 
swer than  this,  Because  it  is  your  own  interest  to  do  so. 
If  we  are  to  find  another,  we  must  leave  the  region  of 
oersonal  pleasure  and  pain,  and  acknowledge  the  power 
of  some  other  motive  which  is  impersonal.  With  Ben- 
tham  it  is  a  fundamental  principle  that  the  desire  of  per- 
sonal good  is  the  only  motive  which  governs  the  will. 
This  is  the  one  exclusive  mode  of  volition  which  he  rec- 
ognizes. He  denies  the  other  two,  unselfish  regard  for 
others,  and  the  moral  law  or  the  abstract  sense  of  right, 


304  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

and  yet  these  two  exist  as  really  as  self-love.  It  is  just 
as  certain  a  fact  that  men  do  sometimes  act  from  gener- 
ous impulses,  or  from  respect  to  what  they  feel  to  be 
right  in  itself,  apart  from  all  consequences,  as  that  they 
do  often  act  merely  with  an  eye  to  their  own  happiness. 
In  the  naked  form,  therefore,  in  which  Bentham  puts  it, 
utilitarianism  is  founded  on  a  psychological  mistake. 
But  the  utilitarian  system  takes  many  forms.  Yet,  as 
Jouffroy,  who  has  discriminated  between  the  varieties 
with  great  acuteness,  observes,  "  Whether  a  man  pur- 
sues the  gratification  of  impulse,  or  the  accompanying 
pleasure,  or  the  different  objects  fitted  to  produce  it; 
whether  he  prefers,  as  most  fitted  to  promote  his  highest 
good,  the  satisfaction  of  certain  tendencies  and  pleasures ; 
or  finally,  whether  for  the  attainment  of  his  end  he 
adopts  the  circuitous  means  of  general  interest,  or  the 
direct  pursuit  of  his  own,  is  of  little  consequence  to  de- 
termine :  he  is  impelled  to  act,  in  every  instance,  by  cal- 
culations of  what  is  best  for  himself.  Self-love  remains 
essentially  the  same  under  all  its  forms,  and  impresses  a 
similar  character  upon  the  various  schemes  of  conduct  to 
which  it  leads." 

In  Mr.  Mill's  treatise  on  "  Utilitarianism "  there  is  in 
words  no  departure  from  the  fundamentals  of  the  utili- 
tarian creed,  though  ingenuity  is  strained  to  the  utmost 
to  make  that  creed  include  principles  and  sentiments 
which  are  really  alien  to  it.  Indeed,  in  this  treatise 
one  prominent  characteristic  of  all  the  author's  writings 
is  more  than  usually  conspicuous.  On  the  one  hand, 
with  an  amiable  obstinacy  he  adheres  to  the  sensational 
and  utilitarian  tenets  which  formed  his  original  philo- 
sophic outfit  On  the  other  hand,  he  employs  a  re- 
dundance of  argument,  sometimes  verging  on  special 
pleading,  to  reconcile  to  his  favorite  hypothesis  views 
and  feelings  gathered  in  alien  regions,  with  which  hi* 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  305 

widened  experience  has  made  him  familiar.  The  effort 
continued  throughout  his  "  Utilitarianism "  has  occa- 
sioned, if  one  may  venture  to  hint  it,  a  want  of  clear 
statement  and  of  precise  thought,  with  sometimes  a 
straining  of  the  meaning  of  terms,  which  one  hardly 
expects  to  meet  with  in  so  trained  a  logician.  This 
comes  no  doubt  from  the  fact,  that  in  order  to  adapt 
the  utilitarian  theory  to  the  primary  moral  perceptions 
of  men,  it  is  necessary  to  go  counter  to  the  natural 
current  of  thought,  and  to  give  a  twist  to  forms  of 
speech,  which  have  interwoven  themselves  into  the 
very  texture  of  language.  One  of  these  strange  con- 
tortions is  the  following  opinion  :  that  it  is  the  idea  of 
the  penal  sanction  which  makes  men  feel  certain  acts 
to  be  wrong ;  not  that  they  are  wrong  in  themselves, 
and  therefore  visited  with  punishment.  Or,  as  Mr.  Mill 
otherwise  expresses  it,  "  the  deserving  or  not  deserv- 
ing punishment  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  notions  of 
right  and  wrong."  This  doctrine,  which  Mr.  Mill  seems 
to  hesitate  to  state  in  all  its  breadth,  else  instead  of 
"  deserving  "  he  would  probably  have  written  "  imposi- 
tion of  punishment,"  has  been  stated  more  explicitly  by 
Professor  Bain,  who  maintains  that  "  the  imposition  of 
punishment  is  the  distinctive  property  of  acts  held  to 
be  morally  wrong ; "  and  again,  that  "  the  primary  germ 
and  commencement  of  conscience  is  the  dread  of  punish- 
ment." Another  equally  startling  position  maintained 
by  Mr.  Mill,  is  that  virtue  is  pursued  primarily  only  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  namely  happiness,  just  as  money  is ; 
but  that  in  time  it  comes  to  be  regarded  as  part  of  the 
end,  happiness,  and  as  such  is  pursued  for  its  own  sake, 
just  as  misers  come  to  love  money  for  itself,  and  not 
for  its  uses.  He  holds  that  in  man  originally  there  is 
no  desire  of  virtue,  or  motive  to  it,  save  as  a  means  to 
gain  pleasure  or  avoid  pain.  But  even  when  desired 
20 


306  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

for  its  own  sake,  which  he  grants  it  comes  to  be,  its 
worth  arises,  not  from  its  own  intrinsic  excellence,  but 
from  its  being  the  most  important  of  all  means  to  the 
general  happiness. 

But  what  it  more  concerns  us  to  remark  at  present 
is  the  answer  which  Mr.  Mill  gives  to  the  question, 
What  is  the  sanction  of  the  utilitarian  ethics,  what  the 
motive  to  conform  to  this  standard?  It  is  of  two 
kinds,  the  external  and  the  internal.  The  external 
motive  is  the  hope  of  favor  or  the  fear  of  punishment 
from  our  fellow-men  or  from  the  Supreme  .Ruler.  The 
internal  motive  is  primarily  the  desire  of  our  own  hap- 
piness, which,  however,  when  enlarged  by  intelligence, 
expands  into  a  desire  for  the  good  of  others.  It  does 
so  because  the  more  we  are  enlightened  the  more 
clearly  we  perceive  that  our  own  good  is  inextricably 
bound  up  with  theirs  ;  because  there  is  in  us  a  natural 
desire  to  be  in  unity  with  others  ;  lastly,  because  an 
unselfish  regard  for  our  neighbors  springs,  by  the  prin- 
ciple of  association,  out  of  intercourse  begun  at  first 
merely  from  self-regard.  It  is  observable,  however, 
that  Mr.  Mill,  though  he  stretches  to  the  utmost  the 
motive  of  self-regard,  combining  with  it  as  much  as 
possible  of  what  is  otherwise  admirable  in  human  na- 
ture, and  though  he  seems  to  allow  the  existence,  in  a 
certain  subordinate  degree,  of  purely  unselfish  sympa- 
thies, yet  in  the  last  resort  makes  self-regard  the  cen- 
tre to  which  all  the  other  feelings,  as  accretions,  cling, 
and  around  which  they  are  woven  into  "  a  complete 
web  of  corroborative  association."  In  this  ground-plan 
of  human  nature,  the  unselfish  sympathies  and  the 
moral  principle  are  not  made  to  occupy  —  what  I  be- 
lieve they  in  reality  do  occupy  —  as  substantial  and  in- 
dependent a  place  as  the  feeling  of  self-interest.  Hence 
neither  the  standard  of  action,  nor  the  motive  power 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  307 

he  sets  forth,  however  much  transformed  by  the  magic 
touch  of  association,  ever  gets  clear  of  the  original 
taint  of  self-reference.  Mr.  Mill's  utilitarianism  does 
not,  any  more  than  other  forms  of  the  same  doctrine, 
give  either  a  really  moral  standard,  or  a  self-forgetting 
and  moral  motive.  As  water  cannot  rise  above  the 
level  from  which  it  springs,  no  more  can  moral  theo- 
ries. Self-love  may  be,  and  as  a  fact  often  is,  the  first 
impulse  that  drives  a  man  to  seek  to  become  morally  and 
religiously  better.  And  there  is  a  measure  of  self-regard 
which  is  right,  wherein  the  individual  self  is  identified 
with  the  universal  self.  But  before  a  man  can  become 
either  truly  moral  or  religious,  private  self-regard  must 
have  been  wholly  subordinated  to,  if  not  entirely  cast  out 
by  a  higher  principle  of  action  and  a  purer  affection. 

In  the  opening  chapter  of  his  work  on  "  Jurispru- 
dence," Austin  sets  forth  the  utilitarian  doctrine  with 
a  distinctness  of  outline  which  far  surpasses  Mr.  Mill's 
exhibition  of  it.  He  does  not,  like  the  latter,  assert 
that  conduciveness  to  general  happiness  is  the  essence, 
but  only  that  it  is  the  index  of  right  action.  The 
Tightness  and  wrongness  of  all  acts  Austin  grounds  pri- 
marily on  the  Divine  will  or  command.  God  designs 
the  happiness  of  all  his  creatures;  and  as  He  has  given 
us  faculties  to  perceive  what  actions  tend  to  produce 
this,  and  what  actions  tend  to  thwart  it,  He  has  given 
us  therein  a  criterion  by  which  to  know  what  his  will 
is,  that  is,  what  actions  we  ought  to  do,  what  to  avoid. 
This  representation  of  the  theory  furnishes  a  lever 
above  and  independent  of  utility,  namely,  the  will  of 
God  —  and  therefore,  in  one  point  of  view,  a  motive 
which,  if  once  realized,  is  every  way  adequate  to  engen- 
der moral  action.  But  still  it  does  not  rise  above  the 
utilitarian  subjection  to  pleasure  and  pain.  For  Aus- 
tin sums  up  the  Divine  will  in  pure  benevolence,  and 


308  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

grounds  obedience  to  it  solely  on  the  fact  that  God  can 
reward  and  punish  to  the  uttermost.  But  to  obey  God 
chiefly  or  entirely  for  such  a  reason,  does  not  amount  to 
moral  obedience,  nor  is  such  a  motive  a  moral  motive. 

There  may  perhaps  be  held  a  view  which,  differing  in 
other  respects  from  the  utilitarian  theory,  agrees  with  it 
in  regarding  pleasure  as  the  universal  motive  power  in 
moral  as  well  as  in  all  other  action.  It  may  be  said 
that  in  all  cases  where  a  choice  is  made,  pleasure,  or,  as 
it  is  sometimes  phrased,  interest,  is  the  determinator  of 
the  choice  ;  that  in  all  conscious  actions,  thoughts,  feel- 
ings, where  a  preference  is  made,  it  is  because  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  one  preferred  is  felt  by  the  agent  to  be 
greater  than  the  pleasure  of  those  not  preferred.  The 
maintainer  of  such  a  theory  would  say  that  the  com- 
monly received  distinction  between  pleasure  and  duty  is 
a  misleading  one.  For  whenever  any  act  is  preferred, 
this  itself  proves  that  act,  however  painful  it  seems,  to 
be  not  only  pleasurable,  but  the  most  pleasurable.  Let 
there  be  two  acts,  it  would  be  said,  one  a  gratification 
of  sense,  and  as  such  pleasurable,  the  other  a  denial  of 
this  gratification,  and  so  far  painful,  yet  if  the  latter  is 
done  from  what  is  called  a  sense  of  duty,  the  fact  that 
it  has  been  preferred  proves  that  it  was  not  only  pleas- 
ant, but  the  most  pleasant  to  him  who  preferred  it. 
For  that  which  in  the  event  is  chosen  to  be  done  is 
thereby  proved  to  be  the  most  pleasurable.  To  this  it 
may  be  replied  that  to  make  the  pleasurable  synony- 
mous with  that  which  is  actually  preferred,  is  to  give 
the  term  a  quite  new  meaning.  So  to  stretch  the  idea 
of  pleasure  is  to  change  it  entirely,  and  to  render  it 
wholly  vague  and  empty  of  meaning. 

It  may  be  true  that  in  most,  perhaps  in  all,  moral 
acts,  there  is  present  more  or  less  a  conscious  pleasure, 
but  it  is  present  as  a  consequence,  not  as  an  antecedent 


TEE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  309 

of  the  choice.  It  is  also  true  that  virtue  and  pleasure 
are  so  far  from  being  incompatible,  that  the  higher  a 
man  advances  in  virtue  the  greater  is  his  delight  in  it ; 
indeed,  that  the  measure  of  his  delight  is  in  some  sort  a 
gauge  of  his  moral  progress.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  no  less  true  that  while  man  remains  in  the  present 
state  of  moral  struggle,  in  some  of  his  acts  of  purest 
duty  the  ingredient  of  pleasure  must  be  so  faintly  pres- 
ent as  to  be  inappreciable.  To  all  theories  of  virtue 
which  give  pleasure  or  self-love  a  foremost  place  in  it, 
whether  as  entering  into  its  nature,  or  operating  as  its 
moving  spring,  it  is  enough  to  answer  that  they  with- 
draw from  moral  action  that  which  is  a  main  constituent 
of  it,  namely,  its  unselfish  character,  and  so  reduce  it  to 
the  level  of  at  least  mere  prudence.  They  fail  to  recog- 
nize what  Dr.  Newman  has  so  well  described  as  "  a  re- 
markable law  of  ethics,  which  is  well  known  to  all  who 
have  given  their  minds  to  the  subject.  All  virtue  and 
goodness  tend  to  make  men  powerful  hi  this  world ;  but 
they  who  aim  at  the  power  have  not  the  virtue.  Again, 
virtue  is  its  own  reward,  and  brings  with  it  the  truest 
and  highest  pleasures ;  but  they  who  cultivate  it  for  the 
pleasure-sake  are  selfish,  not  religious,  and  will  never 
have  the  pleasure,  because  they  never  can  have  the  vir- 
tue." There  is  no  truth  of  ethics  more  certain  than 
this.  And  it  is  not  merely  an  abstract  principle,  but 
one  which  embodies  itself  in  practice  every  day  before 
our  eyes.  How  continually  do  we  see  that  the  pleasure- 
seeker  is  not  the  pleasure-finder ;  that  those  are  the 
happiest  men  who  think  least  about  happiness !  Be- 
cause, in  order  to  attain  to  that  serene  and  harmonious 
energy,  that  inward  peace,  which  is  the  only  true  happi- 
ness, a  man  imast  cease  to  seek  pleasure,  and  apprehend 
some  higher  object  to  live  for.  So  true  is  it  that,  as  has 
been  said,  the  abandoning  of  some  lower  end  in  obedi- 


810  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

ence  to  a  higher  aim,  is  often  made  the  very  condition 
of  securing  the  lower  one.  Or,  as  the  author  of  "  Ecce 
Homo  "  writes,  "  It  is  far  from  universally  true  that  to 
get  a  thing  you  must  aim  at  it.  There  are  some  things 
which  can  only  be  gained  by  renouncing  them."  And 
such  a  thing  moral  pleasure  is.  Does  not  this  charac- 
teristic, that  when  you  make  the  pleasure  your  conscious 
aim,  it  is  gone,  —  at  least  the  purer  essence,  the  finer 
bloom  of  it,  —  prove  that  it  is  merely  a  subsidiary  ac- 
companiment of  moral  action,  the  attendant  shadow,  not 
the  substance,  and  cannot  therefore  be  its  -  propelling 
power  ? 

The  foregoing  survey  of  systems,  ancient  and  modern, 
has  been  long,  perhaps  even  to  weariness,  and  yet  it  has 
not  given  us  the  thing  we  seek.  In  what  have  been 
called  the  intuitive  theories,  the  motive  presented,  if 
high,  has  been  remote  and  impalpable,  not  such  as 
would  naturally  come  home  to  the  hearts  of  ordinary 
men.  The  narrower  forms  of  utilitarianism  offer  a  mo- 
tive near  and  strong  enough  —  self-love  ;  but  then  it  is 
one  which  men  of  moral  aspiration  most  long  to  rise 
above.  When  the  endeavor  is  made  to  combine  with 
it  benevolence,  and  to  take  in  the  whole  human  race, 
the  motive  is  no  doubt  elevated,  but  at  the  expense  of 
its  power  ;  it  is  emptied  of  the  strength  which  self-love 
peculiarly  possesses.  On  the  whole,  then,  from  this 
want  of  practical  help  in  many  ways,  and  especially 
from  their  lack  of  a  moral  dynamic,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  most  men  turn  from  ethical  theories  with  weariness 
and  even  disgust.  Young  students,  and  older  men  pro- 
fessionally interested  in  these  subjects,  can  hardly  imag- 
ine how  widely  this  is  the  case,  not  only  with  those  so 
immersed  in  transitory  interests  as  to  have  no  time  or 
heart  for  higher  matters,  but  also  with  the  devoutly  re- 
ligious, with  men  :>f  ideal  longings,  with  those  who  have 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  311 

been  much  exercised  with  earnest  questionings.  Men 
who  are  simply  religious  turn  from  theories  of  virtue,  as 
not  only  useless,  but  as  cold,  hard,  unloving  —  obstruc- 
tions that  come  between  them  and  that  their  heart  most 
loves  to  commune  with.  Morality  seems  to  draw  all  its 
help  from  man's  own  internal  resources,  and  they  feel 
too  keenly  that  not  in  these  is  help  to  be  found,  but  in 
a  strength  out  from  and  above  themselves.  The  inmost 
breathing  of  the  devout  heart  is,  "  Lead  me  to  the  rock 
that  is  higher  than  I."  And  the  deep-hearted  poet, 
weary  of  abstractions,  and  longing  for  life,  more  life,  and 
fuller,  turns  from  moral  theories  with  a  passionate  — 

"  Away,  haunt  not  thou  me, 
Thou  vain  Philosophy! 
Little  hast  thou  bestead, 
Save  to  perplex  the  head 
And  leave  the  spirit  dead. 
Unto  thy  broken  cisterns  wherefore  go, 
While  firom  the  secret  treasure  depths  below, 
Fed  by  the  skyey  shower, 
And  clouds  that  sink  and  rest  on  hill-tops  high, 
Wisdom  at  once,  and  Power 
Are  welling,  bubbling  forth,  unseen,  incessantly  ? 

Why  labor  at  the  dull  mechanic  oar, 
When  the  fresh  breeze  is  blowing, 
And  the  strong  current  flowing 
Right  onward  to  the  eternal  shore?  " 

Broken  cisterns !  this  was  all  one  of  the  deepest- 
minded  men  and  most  thoughtful  poets  of  our  time 
found  hi  our  moral  systems  after  long  enough  study  of 
them. 

Again,  when  we  read  the  lives  of  those  men  who 
have  had  the  deepest  spiritual  experience,  to  whom,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  infinity  of  duty,  the  commandment 
exceeding  broad,  and,  on  the  other,  the  depth  of  their 
own  spiritual  poverty,  has  been  most  laid  bare  —  we 
find  them  confessing  that  the  seventh  chapter  of  Romans 


312  THE  MORAL   MOTIVE  POWER. 

describes  their  condition  more  truly  than  any  philos- 
opher has  done.  With  their  whole  hearts  they  have 
felt  St.  Paul's  "  O  wretched  man  that  I  am !  who  shall 
deliver  me  ? "  Such  are  the  men  who,  having  them- 
selves come  out  of  great  deeps,  become  the  spirit-quick- 
eners  of  their  fellow-men,  the  revivers  of  a  deeper 
morality.  To  all  such  there  is  a  grim  irony  in  the 
philosophic  ideas  when  confronted  with  their  own 
actuals.  So  hopelessly  wide  seems  the  gap  between 
their  own  condition  and  the  "  Thou  shalt "  of  the  com- 
mandment. Not  dead  diagrams  of  virtue  such  men 
want,  but  living  powers  of  righteousness.  They  do  not 
quarrel  with  the  moralist's  ideal,  though  it  is  neither 
the  saint's  nor  the  poet's.  They  find  no  fault  with  his 
account  of  the  faculty  which  discerns  that  ideal,  though 
it  is  not  exactly  theirs.  But  what  they  ask  is  not  the 
faculty  to  know  the  right,  but  the  power  to  be  right- 
eous. It  is  because  this  they  find  not,  because  what 
reason  commands,  the  will  cannot  be  or  do,  that  they 
are  filled  with  despair.  As  well,  they  say,  bid  us  lay 
our  hand  upon  the  stars  because  we  see  them,  as  realize 
your  ideal  of  virtue  because  we  discern  it. 

But  is  there  no  outlet  by  which,  from  the  mere  forms 
of  moral  thought,  a  man  may  climb  upward  to  the 
treasure-house  of  its  power?  Let  us  turn  and  look 
once  more  at  the  moral  law,  as  exhibited  in  its  purest 
form  by  Kant.  In  this  view  the  moral  law  is  not  a 
higher  self,  but  an  independent  reality,  which,  entering 
into  a  man,  evokes  the  higher  self  within  him.  To  the 
truth,  as  well  as  the  sublimity  of  Kant's  conception,  all 
hearts  bear  witness,  by  the  reverence  they  must  feel  in 
its  presence.  And  yet  we  know  that,  when  we  lay  this 
bare  law  to  heart,  it  engenders  not  strength,  but  despair. 
A  few  there  may  have  been  who  have  been  able  to 
dispense  with  all  tender  feelings,  and  to  live  high  lives 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWT.R.  313 

by  dipt  of  the  law  of  duty  alone.  All  honor  to  such 
hardy  spirits  !  no  word  shall  be  said  in  their  disparage- 
ment. However  imperfect  their  principle  may  be, 
their  face  is  set  in  the  right  direction ;  they  are  on  the 
way,  who  but  must  believe  it  ?  to  all  good.  Yet  their 
lives,  upright  though  they  may  be,  will  be  stern  and 
unrejoicing,  wanting  in  much  that  hearts  set  free  should 
have.  But  for  most  men,  and  among  these  for  many 
even  in  the  nobler  sort,  such  a  life  would  be  impossible. 
Under  such  an  iron  rule,  a  large,  and  that  the  finer 
part  of  man's  being,  would  have  no  place  ;  the  soul's 
gentler  but  more  animating  forces  would  be  starved 
for  lack  of  nutriment.  Still,  as  this  law  contains  so 
much  of  highest  truth,  let  us  keep  fast  hold  of  it,  and 
see  whence  it  comes,  and  whither  it  leads. 

On  reflection  we  find  that  there  are  many  facts  of 
human  nature  and  of  the  world,  many  separate  lines  of 
thought,  all  leading  upward  and  converging  on  one 
spiritual  centre.  These  are  like  so  many  mountain 
paths,  striking  upward  in  diverse  directions,  but  leading 
all  at  last  to  one  great  summit.  Of  these  the  moral 
law  is  the  loftiest,  the  directest,  the  most  inward,  the 
most  awe-inspiring. 

But  to  begin  with  the  outward  world,  there  is,  I 
shall  not  say  so  much  the  mark  of  design  on  all  out- 
ward things,  as  an  experience  forced  in  upon  the  mind 
of  the  thoughtful  naturalist,  that,  penetrate  into  nature 
wherever  he  may,  thought  has  been  there  before  him ; 
that,  to  quote  the  words  of  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished, "  there  is  really  a  plan,  a  thoughtful  plan,  a 
plan  which  may  be  read  in  the  relations  which  you  and 
I,  and  all  living  beings  scattered  over  the  surface  of  our 
earth,  hold  to  one  another."  The  work  of  the  natural- 
ist, as  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  consists  only  in  an  attempt 
to  read  more  and  more  accurately  a  work  hi  which  he 


314  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

has  had  no  part,  —  a  work  which  displays  the  thought 
of  a  mind  more  comprehensive  than  his  own  ;  his  task 
is  to  read  the  thoughts  of  that  mind  as  expressed  in  the 
living  realities  that  surround  us ;  and  the  more  we  give 
up  our  own  conceit  in  this  work,  the  less  selfish  we  be- 
come, the  more  shall  we  discern,  the  deeper  we  shall 
read,  and  the  nearer  we  shall  come  to  nature ; "  and,  it 
may  be  added,  to  Him  whose  thought  nature  is. 

Again,  when*  we  look  within,  there  is  "  the  causal 
instinct  of  the  intellect,"  as  it  has  been  called,  —  the 
mental  demand  for  a  cause  of  every  event,  or  rather 
the  ineradicable  craving  for  a  Power  behind  all  phe- 
nomena, of  which  they  are  but  the  manifestations,  —  a 
craving  which  no  form  of  Comtean  philosophy  will  ever 
exercise. 

Again,  there  is  the  passionate  longing  of  the  imagina- 
tion, aspiring  after  an  ideal  perfection  for  ourselves  and 
others,  apprehending  a  beauty  more  than  eye  has  seen 
or  ear  heard. 

Again,  there  is  "  the  unsufficingness  of  self  for  self," 
the  dependency  of  the  affections,  feeling  the  need  of 
an  object  like  themselves ;  yet  higher,  more  enduring, 
all-perfect,  on  which  they  can  lean,  in  which  they  may 
find  refuge. 

Again,  another  avenue  upward  is  a  feeling  of  the 
derivative  nature,  not  of  our  affections  merely,  but  of 
our  whole  being.  We  are  here  a  little  while,  —  each 
a  small  rill  of  life,  —  containing  many  qualities.  We 
feel,  think,  fear,  love ;  no  facts  are  more  certain  to  me 
than  these.  Yet  it  is  just  as  certain  that  I  am  here 
not  by  my  own  will.  I  did  not  place  myself  here ; 
cannot  keep  myself  here.  My  life  is  in  the  grasp  of 
powers  which  I  cannot,  except  ha  the  smallest  measure, 
and  for  only  a  little  while,  control.  There  must  be  a 
source  whence  this  life,  and  all  the  other  similar  lives 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  315 

around  me,  come.  And  that  source  cannot  be  anything 
lower,  or  possessed  of  lower  qualities,  than  myself,  but 
rather  something  containing,  in  infinite  abundance,  all 
the  qualities  which  I  and  all  other  beings  like  to  me,  in 
finite  measure,  have.  There  must  be  some  exhaustless 
reservoir  of  being  from  which  my  small  rill,  and  these 
numberless  like  rills  of  being,  come,  —  a  fountain  that 
contains  in  itself  the  all  of  soul  that  has  been  diffused 
through  the  whole  human  race,  and  infinitely  more. 
This  is  no  elaborate  argument,  but  almost  an  instinctive 
perception.  Call  it  anthropomorphic,  if  you  please  ; 
it  is  none  the  less  a  natural  and  true  way  of  thinking, 
and  as  old  as  the  Stoics.  Cicero  puts  it  in  the  mouth 
of  his  Stoic  Balbus,  and  has  supplied  him  with  no  bet- 
ter argument. 

Lastly,  and  chief  of  all,  there  is  the  law  of  duty,  com- 
ing home  to  the  morally  awakened  man  more  inti- 
mately, affecting  him  more  profoundly,  than  anything 
else  he  knows.  What  is  it  —  whence  comes  it  —  this 
law,  which  lies  close  to  all  his  thoughts,  an  ever-pres- 
ent, though  often  latent  consciousness,  haunting  him 
like  his  very  being?  Mr.  Mill  speaks  slightingly,  as  it 
seems,  of  "  the  sort  of  mystical  character  which  is  apt 
to  be  attributed  to  the  idea  of  moral  obligation,"  but 
he  has  not  as  yet  been  able  in  any  measure  to  remove 
the  mystery.  If  instead  of  trying  to  resolve  it  unsat- 
isfactorily into  lower  elements,  as  the  analyst  is  apt  to 
do,  or  to  shrink  from  it  as  the  sensual  nature  always 
will  do,  or  to  act  out  merely  the  letter  of  it,  as  the 
legalist  will  try  to  do,  we  can  but  get  ourselves  to  look 
%t  it  steadily,  and  with  open  heart,  the  mystery  of  its 
nature  and  origin  will  not  grow  less  to  us,  but  more. 
What  is  it ;  is  it  mere  abstraction  ?  That  which  rea- 
son apprehends,  and  the  personal  will  bows  to,  as  an 
authority  superior  to  themselves,  cannot  be  a  mere  ab- 


816  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

straction,  but  something  which  is  congenerous  with 
themselves.  The  moral  law  must  be  either  a  self- 
existing  entity,  like  to  our  highest  nature,  or  must  in- 
here in  one  who  possesses  all  that  we  have  of  reason 
and  will,  only  in  an  infinitely  greater  degree.  That 
which  our  inner  self,  our  personality,  feels  to  have 
rightful  supremacy  over  it,  must  be  either  in  personal- 
ity, or  something  more  excellent  than  personality,  if 
that  is  possible.  Lower  than-  a  personality  it  cannot 
be,  and  lower  all  mere  laws  and  abstractions  undoubt- 
edly are.  To  some  such  conviction  as  this  we  are  led 
up,  by  asking  what  is  this  moral  law  which  we  appre- 
hend, and  whence  does  it  come?  Here,  if  anywhere, 
we  find  the  golden  link  which  connects  the  human  na- 
ture with  the  Divine. 

Putting  then  all  these  converging  lines  of  thought  to- 
gether, we  see  that  they  meet  in  the  conviction  that 
there  is  behind  ourselves,  and  all  the  things  we  see  and 
know,  a  Mind,  a  Reason,  a  Will,  like  to  our  own,  only 
incomprehensibly  greater,  of  which  will  and  reason  the 
moral  law  is  the  truest  and  most  adequate  exponent  we 
have.  Not  that  these  lines,  any  or  all  of  them,  are  to 
be  taken  as  proofs  demonstrating  the  existence  of  God. 
That  is  a  truth,  I  believe,  incapable  of  scientific  demon- 
stration. The  notion  of  God  seems  to  be,  as  Coleridge 
has  well  expressed  it,  essential  to  the  human  mind,  not 
derived  from  reasonings,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  actually 
called  forth  into  distinct  consciousness  mainly  by  the 
conscience.  When,  however,  we  come  to  reflect  on 
that  belief  afterwards,  we  find  hints  and  confirmations 
of  it,  mainly  in  the  existence  of  our  moral  nature  and 
of  the  law  of  duty,  and  secondarily  in  those  other  lines 
j>f  thought  which,  as  we  have  seen,  converge  towards 
the  same  centre.  But  these  are  dim  tracts  of  thought 
hard  to  tread  with  firm  step.  Yet  though  the  lines  as 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  317 

here  traced  are  imperfect  and  broken,  they  may  be 
taken  for  what  they  are  meant  to  be,  —  hints  for 
thought  on  an  exhaustless  subject. 

In  this  discussion  I  have  taken  for  granted  that  the 
morality  of  man  is  in  its  essence  identical  with  the  mo- 
rality of  God  —  that  when  we  use  the  word  righteous 
of  man  and  of  God,  we  do  not  use  it  in  two  different 
senses,  but  hi  the  same  sense.  This  position,  implicitly 
held  before  by  all,  both  philosophers  and  ordinary  men, 
has  been  more  explicitly  brought  out  and  established 
by  the  polemic  which  the  late  Dean  Hansel's  denial  of 
it  called  forth.  The  result  of  a  real  faith  not  merely 
in  an  abstract  moral  law,  but  in  a  Personal  Being, — 
in  whom  dwells  the  moral  law  and  whatever  of  highest 
is  in  ourselves,  of  whose  moral  Being  our  moral  nature 
is  a  famt  but  true  image,  —  will  be  to  let  hi  on  the  soul 
a  new  motive  power,  a  new  centre  of  existence.  This 
is  the  first  condition  of  a  living  morality  as  well  as  of 
vital  religion,  that  the  soul  shall  find  a  true  centre  out 
from  and  above  itself,  round  which  it  shall  revolve. 
The  essence  of  all  immorality,  of  sin,  is  the  nuking  self 
the  centre  to  which  we  subordinate  all  other  beings 
and  interests.  To  be  delivered  from  this,  the  condition 
of  the  natural  man  is  the  turning-point  of  moral  prog- 
ress, and  of  spiritual  renewal.  The  new  and  rightful 
centre  which  shall  draw  us  out  of  our  self-centre,  and 
by  its  attraction  make  us  revolve  round  itself,  must  be 
that  which  contains  the  moral  law,  and  whatever  is  best 
in  ourselves,  and  in  all  other  created  selves.  He  only 
hi  whose  image  we  are  made  can  be  such  a  centre  to 
our  creaturely  wills.  But  further,  neither  the  God 
whom  mere  science  hints  of,  nor  the  God  whom  the 
bare  unrelenting  moral  law  sets  forth,  is  capable  of  being 
a  real  resting-place  for  the  heart  of  man.  There  are 
warm  emotions  within  it,  which,  before  representations 


318  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

of  a  God  of  mere  law,  whether  natural  or  moral,  die 
down  like  herbs  beneath  an  arctic  winter.  To  call 
forth  these,  it  requires  the  unveiling  of  a  Living  and  a 
Personal  Will,  in  sympathy  not  only  with  whatever 
moral  principle  is  in  us,  but  also  with  whatever  is  most 
pure  and  tender  in  our  affections.  When  we  come  to 
conceive  thus  of  God,  then  there  becomes  possible  a 
goirg  forth  towards  Him  of  the  tenderer  and  devouter 
emotions,  as  well  as  of  the  more  purely  moral  senti- 
ments. Such  a  Being  becomes  to  man  the  centre  and 
the  end  for  his  reason,  affections,  and  conscience  alike 
— a  foundation  on  which  his  whole  being  can  perma- 
nently repose. 

But  few,  and  these  only  the  most  favored  of  the 
sons  of  men,  have,  apart  from  revelation,  ever  attained 
so  to  conceive  of  God.  A  pure-minded  sage  here  and 
there  —  Plato,  when  he  drops  his  dialectics  and  gives 
vent  to  his  devouter  mind,  as  in  the  well-known  pas- 
sage of  the  "  Theaetetus,"  Marcus  Aurelius  here  and 
there  in  his  meditations — may  have  in  some  measure, 
though  far  off,  so  caught  a  glimpse  of  Him.  To  most 
men  who  have  sought  Him  at  all,  outside  of  Chris- 
tianity, it  has  been  at  best  but  a  dim  feeling  after  Him, 
if  haply  they  might  find  Him.  It  required  the  ap- 
pearance of  Christ  on  earth  to  bring  close  to  the  hearts 
of  any  number  of  men  the  power  of  moral  inspiration 
which  is  laid  up  in  the  very  thought  of  God.  Till 
then  He  seemed  too  high,  too  remote  for  this.  But 
when  Christ  in  human  form  came  near  to  them,  his 
presence  touched  the  moral  springs  in  men,  hitherto 
dormant,  and  made  new  forces  of  spiritual  life  stir 
within  them.  Christ  henceforth,  both  by  his  own 
personal  teaching  and  example,  and  also  by  the  new 
light  of  God's  character  which  He  let  in  on  men's 
hearts,  —  Himself  the  channel  through  which  that  light 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  319 

was  let  in,  —  became  a  new  dynamic  power  of  virtue, 
an  inspirer  of  goodness.  The  virtue-making  power 
which  He  used  was  different  from  that  which  had  been 
employed  by  the  philosophers.  They  addressed  the 
reason  ;  He  touched  the  whole  man  by  his  words,  by 
his  deeds,  above  all  by  contact  with  Himself.  The 
two  methods  are  well  contrasted  in  the  following  pas- 
sage of  "  Ecce  Homo  "  :  — 

"  Who  is  the  philosophic  good  man  ?  He  is  one 
who  has  considered  all  the  objects  and  consequences 
of  human  action ;  he  has,  in  the  first  place,  perceived 
that  there  is  in  him  a  principle  of  sympathy,  the  due 
development  of  which  demands  that  he  should  habitu- 
ally consider  the  advantage  of  others ;  he  has  been  led 
by  reflection  to  perceive  that  the  advantage  of  one 
individual  may  often  involve  the  injury  of  several ;  he 
has  therefore  concluded  that  it  is  necessary  to  lay 
down  systematic  rules  for  his  actions,  lest  he  should  be 
led  into  such  miscalculations,  and  he  has  in  this  rea- 
sonable and  gradual  manner  arrived  at  a  system  of 
morality.  This  is  the  philosophic  good  man.  Do  we 
find  the  result  satisfactory  ?  Do  we  not  find  in  him  a 
languid,  melancholic,  dull,  and  hard  temperament  of 
virtue  ?  He  does  right,  perhaps,  but  without  warmth 
or  promptitude.  And  no  wonder !  The  principle  of 
sympathy  was  feeble  in  him  at  the  beginning  for  want 
of  contact  with  those  who  might  have  called  it  into 
play,  and  it  has  been  made  feebler  still  by  hard  brain- 
work  and  solitude.  On  the  other  hand,  who  is  the 
good  man  that  we  admire  and  love?  How  do  men 
become  for  the  most  part  pure,  generous,  and  humane  ? 
By  personal,  not  by  logical  influences.  They  have 
been  reared  by  parents  who  had  these  qualities,  they 
have  lived  in  society  which  had  a  high  tone,  they  have 
been  accustomed  to  see  just  acts  done,  to  hear  gentle 


320  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

words  spoken,  and  the  justness  and  the  gentleness  have 
passed  into  their  hearts  and  slowly  moulded  their 
habits,  and  made  their  moral  discernment  clear ;  they 
remember  commands  and  prohibitions  which  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  obey  for  the  sake  of  those  who  gave  them ; 
they  think  of  those  who  may  be  dead,  and  say,  How 
would  this  action  appear  to  him?  Would  he  approve 
that  word,  or  disapprove  it?  ....  They  are  never 
alone,  because  the  absent  Examples,  the  Authorities 
they  still  revere,  rule  not  their  actions  only,  but  their 
inmost  hearts;  because  their  conscience  is  indeed 
awake  and  alive,  representing  all  the  nobleness  with 
which  they  stand  in  sympathy,  and  reporting  their 
most  hidden  indecorum  before  a  public  opinion  of  the 
absent  and  the  dead." 

It  was  this  last  mode  of  appeal,  one  not  wholly 
unknown  before  his  day,  that  Christ  adopted.  But 
though  the  channel  was  familiar,  the  use  He  made  of 
it  was  not ;  for  the  influence  He  poured  through  it 
was  not  only  the  purest  human,  but  the  Divine.  The 
philosophers  had  addressed  the  reason,  and  failed. 
Christ  laid  hold  of  a  passion  which  was  latent  in  every 
man,  and  prevailed.  What  was  this  passion  ?  It  was 
the  love,  not  of  man,  "  not  of  all  men,  nor  yet  of  every 
man,  but  of  the  man  in  the  man."  But  this  in  all  men 
is  naturally  a  weak  principle  ;  how  did  He  make  it 
a  powerful  one,  make  it  "  a  law-making  power,  a  root 
of  morality  in  human  nature  ?  "  He  gave  a  command 
to  love  all  men  without  exception,  even  our  enemies. 
Now  a  command  cannot  create  love ;  but^  with  the 
commandment  He  gave  Himself  to  love,  and  to  awake 
the  love  that  lies  dormant  in  every  man.  This,  which 
is  the  central  teaching  of  "  Ecce  Homo,"  must  be  given 
in  the  author's  own  words,  so  full  of  beauty  and 
power :  — 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  321 

"  Did  the  command  to  love  go  forth  to  those  who 
had  never  seen  a  human  being  they  could  revere? 
Could  his  followers  turn  upon  him  and  say,  How  can 
we  love  a  creature  so  degraded  ?  ....  Of  this  race 
Christ  Himself  was  a  member,  and  to  this  day  is  it  not 
the  best  answer  to  all  blasphemers  of  the  species,  the 
best  consolation  when  our  sense  of  its  degradation  is 
keenest,  that  a  human  brain  was  behind  his  forehead, 
and  a  human  heart  beating  in  his  breast,  and  that 
within  the  whole  creation  of  God  nothing  more  ele- 
vated or  more  attractive  has  yet  been  found  than  He  ? 
....  It  was  because  the  edict  of  universal  love 
went  forth  to  men  whose  hearts  were  in  no  cynical 
mood,  but  possessed  with  a  spirit  of  devotion  to  a  man, 
that  words  which,  at  any  other  time,  however  grandly 
they  might  sound,  would  have  been  but  words,  pene- 
trated so  deeply,  and  along  with  the  law  of  love  the 
power  of  love  was  given.  Therefore,  also,  the  first 
Christians  were  enabled  to  dispense  with  philosophical 
phrases,  and  instead  of  saying  that  they  loved  the  ideal 
of  man,  could  simply  say  and  feel  that  they  loved 

Christ  in  every  man Christ  believed  it  possible 

to  bind  men  to  their  kind"  (and  to  all  goodness),  "but 
on  one  condition,  that  they  were  first  bound  fast  to 
Himself." 

To  his  followers  who  walked  with  Him  on  earth, 
his  presence,  and  to  many  in  every  age  since,  his 
image  has  been  the  strongest  of  all  levers  to  lift  them 
out  of  selfishness,  and  to  new-create  into  goodness. 
They  have  found  in  his  life  and  character  an  objective 
conscience  better  than  all  other  ideals  of  perfection; 
in  their  sympathy  with  Him  they  have  had  the  most 
unerring  test  by  which  to  discern  what  was  right  and 
what  was  wrong  to  do ;  and  in  their  love  and  venera- 
tion for  Him,  a  motive  power  beyond  all  powers,  ena- 
21 


322  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

bling  them  to  do  what  was  right  from  the  love  of  it,  — 
a  power  of  loving  God  and  of  loving  man,  because 
they  loved  both  in  Him.  To  such  the  law  of  love 
absorbed  into  itself  and  transfigured  the  law  of  duty, 
and  became,  in  a  new  and  preeminent  way,  the  fulfill- 
ing of  the  law.  Morality  to  them  was  no  longer  sub- 
jection and  obedience  to  a  dead  abstract  law,  which 
they  might  revere  but  could  not  love,  but  an  inspira- 
tion caught  by  contagion  with  Him  who  contained 
the  moral  law  and  all  the  springs  of  morality  in  Him- 
self. This  is  that  central  truth,  long  tacitly  recognized, 
but  enforced  with  such  power  in  "  Ecce  Homo "  as 
almost  to  appear  new. 

If  we  were  to  go  no  further,  we  have  enough  to 
prove  that  Christ  introduced  into  the  moral  heart  of 
man  that  which  all  philosophers  have  been  unable  to 
find,  —  a  new  dynamic  force,  which  not  only  told  them 
what  was  good,  but  inspired  them  with  the  love  and 
the  power  of  being  good.  In  short,  He  was  the  living 
centre  of  a  new  moral  and  spiritual  creation.  But  if 
we  go  thus  far,  we  cannot  stop  here,  it  would  seem  — 
we  must  go  further  than  the  author  of  "  Ecce  Homo " 
does.  For  Christ  claimed  for  Himself,  and  all  who 
had  followed  Him  most  closely  have  acknowledged,  that 
there  are  other  powers  and  truths  in  Him,  which  in 
that  able  survey  are  either  left  in  the  background  or 
altogether  passed  by.  Those  more  transcendent  doc- 
trines, Christ's  atonement,  his  resurrection,  the  in- 
dwelling of  his  Spirit,  are  as  much  part  of  the  testi- 
mony about  Christ  and  of  the  agencies  by  which 
He  has  changed  the  world,  as  anything  that  we  know 
of  his  character.  Indeed  they  are  part,  and  a  large 
part,  of  what  makes  his  character.  You  cannot  cut 
off  the  one  without  shaking  the  foundations  of  the 
other ;  and  these  doctrines  are,  if  true  at  all,  not 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  323 

merely  in  conformity  with  the  purest  moral  and  spir- 
itual principles,  but  must  be  their  very  essence,  must 
lie  at  their  very  root.  Those  who  have  most  laid  to 
heart  and  lived  by  these  doctrines,  have  found  in  the 
Atonement  the  obliterating  of  all  past  sin,  the  lifting 
off  the  whole  load  of  guilt.  This  is  not  the  place  to 
enlarge  on  these  things.  But  no  fact  in  man's  moral 
history  is  more  certain  than  this,  that  the  simple  state- 
ment of  Scripture,  "  Christ  has  appeared  to  put  away 
sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself,"  has  been  found  effica- 
cious to  reach  down  to  the  lowest  depths  of  men's 
souls  beyond  any  other  truth  ever  uttered  on  this 
earth.  In  the  Resurrection,  they  have  found  the  as- 
surance that  what  conscience  prophesies  will  in  the 
end  come  true,  that,  though  experience  often  seems 
against  it,  "  right  is  stronger  than  wrong,  truth  is  bet- 
ter than  falsehood,  purity  shall  prevail  over  sensual 
indulgence,  meekness  shall  inherit  the  earth ;  for  right, 
truth,  and  purity  are  summed  up  in  their  champion 
Christ,  and  He  has  conquered  death,  the  one  uncon- 
querable champion  of  the  enemy."  In  the  promise  of 
the  indwelling  Spirit,  and  its  fulfillment,  they  have 
found  a  surety  that  the  impulse  which  Christ  first  gave 
will  not  fail  nor  grow  old,  but  will  overcome  all  ob- 
stacles and  outlast  time.  One  great  practical  result 
of  these  truths  is  the  animating  confidence  they  give 
that  "  God  is  for  us."  There  is  nothing  so  crushing 
to  moral  effort  as  the  suspicion  that  however  we  may 
strive  to  live  rightly,  the  great  forces  of  the  universe 
may  be  after  all  against  us.  But  here  the  Atonement 
and  the  Resurrection  come  in.  They  tell  us  that  this 
suspicion  is  groundless,  that  God  is  not  against  us, 
but  on  our  side,  that  the  faintest  desire  to  be  better 
He  sympathizes  with,  and  will  help  ;  that  even  on  the 
heart  where  no  such  desire  is  yet  stirring,  He  still 


324  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

looks  tenderly,  that  He  wills  its  salvation,  and  has 
proved  that  He  really  and  deeply  wills  it  by  a  self- 
sacrificing  love  greater  than  we  can  conceive.  Can 
any  strength  for  moral  improvement  go  beyond  this  ? 
Nor  is  it  merely  a  one-sided  view  of  the  love  of 
God  which  thus  comes  to  our  aid.  His  righteousness 
too  —  since  we  must  speak  of  these  two  things  sepa- 
rately, though  in  reality  they  are  one  —  his  righteous- 
ness, if  it  turns  on  our  selfish  and  sinful  nature  a  side 
that  is  fearful,  turns  also  on  all  our  better  longings  a 
side  that  is  full  of  hope.  A  righteousness  that  is  per- 
fect, that  is,  a  Divine  righteousness,  cannot  be  fully 
satisfied  with  merely  apportioning  reward  and  punish- 
ment according  to  desert.  This,  though  one  aspect 
of  righteousness,  is  its  lower  and  incomplete  work. 
The  righteousness  which  is  perfect,  or  rather  the  per- 
fectly Righteous  One,  must  long  to  bring  all  his  intel- 
ligent creatures  in  sympathy  with  his  own  righteous- 
ness, to  make  them  partakers  of  it,  and  cannot  be  fully 
satisfied  with  any  other  result.  As  it  has  been  ex- 
pressed, "  Righteousness  in  God  is  craving  for  right- 
eousness in  man, 'with  a  craving  which  the  realization 
of  righteousness  in  man  alone  can  satisfy."  So  also 
of  holiness.  In  one  view  it  repels  the  sinner,  and 
would  banish  him  to  outer  darkness,  because  of  its 
repugnance  to  sin.  In  another  it  is  pained  by  the 
continued  existence  of  sin  and  unholiness,  and  must 
desire  that  the  sinner  should  cease  to  be  sinful.  So 
that  the  sinner,  awakening  to  his  own  evil  state,  and 
saying  to  himself,  "By  sin  I  have  destroyed  myself; 
is  there  yet  hope  for  me  in  God  ?  "  may  hear  an  en- 
couraging answer,  not  only  from  the  love  and  mercy 
of  God,  but  also  from  his  very  righteousness  and  holi- 
ness. When  he  meditates  on  the  character  of  the 
Lord  his  consolation  will  be,  "  Surely  the  Divine  right 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  325 

eousness  desires  to  see  me  righteous  —  the  Divine  ho- 
liness desires  to  see  me  holy  ;  my  continuing  unright- 
eous and  unholy  is  as  grieving  to  God's  righteousness 
and  holiness  as  my  misery  through  sin  is  to  his  pity 
and  love  ?  "  It  is  in  such  faiths  as  these,  such  glances 
upward  to  God,  that  the  soul  finds  the  only  true  re- 
storative. 

The  result  of  all  that  has  been  said  is  this,  that  only 
in  vital  Christianity,  or  rather,  to  speak  plainly,  in  God 
revealed  in  Christ,  lies  the  adequate  and  all-sufficient 
moral  motive  power  for  man.  For  in  Him  thus  re- 
vealed all  the  principles  of  man's  composite  nature  find 
their  object.  The  natural  desire  for  happiness,  the 
yearning  of  the  affections,  the  moral  needs  of  con- 
science, the  aspiration  to  be  perfect,  all  are  satisfied. 
And  these  diverse  principles  so  centered  are  turned  into 
motive  powers,  or  rather  into  one  composite  motive 
power,  in  which  the  lower,  more  self-regarding  ele- 
ments, are  gradually  subordinated  and  absorbed  by  the 
higher. 

But  you  say,  perhaps,  that  these  things,  if  true,  are 
things  of  faith,  and  morality  stands  en  grounds  of  rea- 
son. Is  it  so  ?  Is  it,  then,  certain  that  morality  is  in- 
dependent of  faith  ?  To  prefer  an  unseen  duty  because 
it  is  right,  to  a  seen  pleasure  because  it  is  pleasant,  — 
what  is  this  but  an  act  of  faith  ?  It  requires  faith  to 
do  the  simplest  moral  act,  if  it  is  to  be  done  morally. 
And  the  highest  religious  truths,  if  once  they  are  appre- 
hended vitally  and  spiritually  from  within,  and  not 
merely  taken  passively  on  authority  from  without,  will 
be  found  to  require  but  an  expansion  of  that  same  prin- 
ciple of  faith  by  which,  in  its  more  elementary  form, 
we  realize  the  simplest  moral  truths. 

There  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt  that  the  promise* 


326  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

"I  will  put  my  laws  into  their  hearts,  and  in  their 
minds  will  I  write  them,"  is  the  one  great  work  which 
philosophy  could  not  do,  which  the  gospel  has  to  some 
extent  done.  It  has  brought  in  that  which  moralists 
in  vain  sought  after,  and  without  which  their  schemes 
were  vain  —  a  living  "  virtue-making  power."  This 
was  held  forth  as  a  hope  in  the  Old  Testament,  "  All 
my  fresh  springs  are  in  thee ; "  "  In  thy  light  shall  we 
see  light ; "  "  Then  shall  I  run  in  the  way  of  thy  com- 
mandments, when  thou  shalt  enlarge  my  heart." 
When  Christianity  was  first  preached,  it  was  in  large 
measure  fulfilled.  To  St.  Paul  and  the  first  Christians 
the  law  became  no  longer  a  stern  commandment,  stand- 
ing outside  of  them,  threatening  them  from  above ;  but 
a  warm  law  of  love  within  them  —  not  only  a  higher 
discernment  of  the  good,  but  a  new  and  marvelous 
power  to  do  it,  cheerfully,  and  with  joy.  And  down 
all  the  ages,  whatever  obscurations  Christianity  has  un- 
dergone, this,  the  true  apostolic  succession,  coming 
straight  from  the  Divine  Source  to  each  individual  re- 
cipient anew,  has  never  failed.  In  such  as  Augustine, 
A  Kempis,  Luther,  Pascal,  Leighton,  Fenelon,  Henry 
Martyn,  the  pure  and  sacred  fire  has  been  relit  from 
age  to  age.  They,  by  what  they  were,  and  what  they 
did,  became,  each  to  their  generation,  the  renewers  of  a 
deeper,  more  substantive  morality.  For  the  Christian 
light  in  them  was  not  a  tradition  or  an  orthodoxy,  but 
a  living  flame,  enlightening  and  warming  themselves, 
and  passing  from  them  to  others.  And  so  to  this  day 
their  works  are  storehouses  of  moral  and  spiritual 
quickening,  more  than  all  the  books  of  all  the  moral- 
ists. When  you  read  Leighton,  for  instance,  you  feel 
yourself  breathing  a  spiritual  air,  compared  with  which 
the  atmosphere  of  the  moral  systems  is  dull  and  de- 
pressing. For  in  Leighton,  and  such  as  he,  morality 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  327 

is,  as  Mr.  Arnold  finely  expresses  it,  "  lighted  up  with 
the  emotion  and  inspiration  needful  for  carrying  the 
sage  along  the  narrow  way  perfectly,  for  carrying  the 
ordinary  man  along  it  at  all."  The  saintly  Archbishop 
was  speaking  of  what  few  have  a  right  to  speak  of,  but 
what  he  had  seen  and  known  when  he  said,  "  One 
glance  of  God,  a  touch  of  his  love,  will  free  and  en- 
large the  heart,  so  that  it  can  deny  all,  and  part  with 
all,  and  make  an  entire  renouncing  of  all  to  follow 
Him."  Again,  "  It  is  in  his  power  to  do  it  for  thee. 
He  can  stretch  and  expand  thy  straitened  heart,  can 
hoist  and  spread  the  sails  within  thee,  and  then  carry 
thee  on  swiftly  ;  filling  them,  not  with  the  vain  air  of 
men's  applause,  but  with  the  sweet  breathings  and  soft 
gales  of  his  own  Spirit,  which  carry  it  straight  to  the 
desired  haven." 

This  is  the  language  of  those  who,  like  Leighton, 
have  known  most  immediately,  to  use  again  his  own 
words,  "  the  sensible  presence  of  God,  and  shining  of 
his  clear-discovered  face  on  them."  Perhaps  ordinary 
men  had  better  speak  little  of  these  things,  they  are 
so  far  beyond  their  experience.  But  language  like 
this,  because  it  has  been  often  repeated  as  a  mere  hear- 
say by  those  who  had  no  experience  of  it,  has  come  to 
be  regarded  by  many  as  merely  a  decorous  tradition 
among  religious  people,  which  other  men  nauseate. 
Still,  however  overlaid  it  has  been  with  words,  and 
however  remote  from  it  most  men  must  confess  them- 
selves to  be,  the  thing  here  spoken  of  remains  none  the 
less  a  reality  —  towards  which  end  not  only  the  relig- 
ious, but  even  the  uprightly  moral  heart,  must  look 
and  aspire. 

In  the  light  of  these  thoughts  regarding  the  spiritual 
springs  of  morality,  how  vain  appears  that  cry  so  often 
heard  in  this  day,  "  Give  us  Christian  morality  without 


328  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

the  dogmas ! "  In  as  far  as  any  dogmas  may  be  tho 
mere  creations  of  churches,  or  may  be  truths  crusted 
over  with  human  accretions,  by  all  means  let  them  be 
either  swept  away  or  purified.  There  is  much  need 
that  all  doctrines  taught  should  be  adjusted  fittingly  to 
the  moral  nature  of  men,  so  as,  by  manifestation  of  the 
truth,  to  commend  themselves  to  every  man's  conscience 
in  the  sight  of  God.  It  is  also  true  that  as  men  ad- 
vance in  spiritual  insight,  their  view  of  doctrine  be- 
comes more  simple,  more  natural,  more  transparent 
with  moral  light.  But  still  it  is  no  less  true  that  love 
to  a  transcendent  object,  to  a  living  person,  is  the.  one 
root  of  Christian  virtue,  and  that  to  expect  Christian 
well-doing  without  a  soul  based  on  Christian  faith,  is  to 
expect  fruit  from  a  tree  which  has  no  root.  As  was 
often  said  by  one  whose  long  life  of  Christian  wisdom 
and  love  gave  weight  to  his  words  :  "  Renan  and  oth- 
ers admire  the  morality  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
but  reject  altogether  the  doctrines  or  transcendent 
truths  of  Christianity.  They  would  divide  the  one 
from  the  other  as  with  a  knife,  preserving  this,  throw- 
ing away  that.  Now  only  think  of  it  in  this  way. 
Take  that  one  precept,  "  Love  your  enemies,  do  good 
to  them  that  hate  you."  How  am  I  really  to  fulfill 
this  ?  If  the  law  of  my  country  gives  me  a  command, 
bids  me  do  this  or  not  do  that  overt  act,  I  can  give  it 
an  outward  mechanical  obedience,  and  with  this  human 
law  is  satisfied.  But  the  divine  precept  commands  not 
an  outward  act,  but  an  inward  spiritual  condition  of 
being.  How  am  I  to  attain  to  this  ?  By  my  force  of 
will  ?  My  will  can  rule  my  outward  acts,  but  cannot 
change  my  inward  dispositions.  What  shall  avail  to 
turn  the  whole  tide  of  feeling,  and  change  the  natural 
hatred  of  enemies  into  love  for  them  ?  Nothing  short 
of  the  forgiveness  and  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  to  me 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  329 

and  to  all  men  felt  to  be  a  reality.  This  has  power  to 
change  the  natural  hatred  into  a  forgiving  love.  Noth- 
ing else  can."  This  seems  clear  as  demonstration.  And 
in  like  manner  it  might  be  shown  that  there  is  not  one 
Christian  precept  which  has  not  its  root,  its  motive 
spring,  directly  in  some  transcendent  truth  of  God's 
nature,  and  of  the  soul's  relation  to  Hun.  Deny  these 
and  the  precepts  fall.  Vain,  therefore,  is  the  dream 
of  a  Christian  morality  without  a  true  Christian  theol- 
ogy supporting  and  inspiring  it  from  beneath. 

But  this  tendency  to  seek  the  fruits  of  Christianity 
while  rejecting  its  root,  is  as  nothing  compared  with  the 
extravagance  of  that  modern  system,  which  teaches  that 
"  the  service  of  humanity  "  may  be  raised  to  the  level  of 
a  practical  and  all-powerful  moral  motive,  while  all  be- 
lief in  a  personal  immortality  and  in  the  existence  of 
God  is  denied,  and  a  vague  something,  called  the  "  spirit 
of  humanity,"  is  made  the  only  object  of  worship.  This 
strange  persuasion  has  at  this  time  its  devotees,  some  of 
them  men  of  great  parts,  and,  I  believe,  of  benevolent 
lives.  That  there  should  be  some  such  —  men  pos- 
sessed by  fanaticism  for  a  creed  which  parodies  Chris- 
tianity while  it  rejects  it  —  is  not  more  to  be  wondered 
at  than  any  other  form  of  fanaticism.  The  causes  that 
have  produced  this  strange  phenomenon  might  not  be 
difficult  to  find.  But  it  is  a  thing  to  be  wondered  at 
that  a  cool-headed  philosopher  like  Mr.  Mill,  who  has 
never  showed  much  tendency  to  fanaticism  for  this  or 
any  form  of  religion,  should  have  thrown  over  it  the 
shield  of  his  patronage.  Yet  so  it  is.  While  professing 
that  he  entertains  the  strongest  objections  to  M.  Comte's 
system  of  politics  and  morals,  he  still  thinks  that  that 
system  has  "  superabundantly  shown  the  possibility  of 
giving  to  the  service  of  humanity,  even  without  the  aid 
of  a  belief  in  Providence,  both  the  psychological  power 


330  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

and  the  social  efficacy  of  a  religion  ;  making  it  take 
hold  of  human  life,  and  color  all  thought,  feeling,  and 
action,  in  a  manner  of  which  the  greatest  ascendancy 
ever  exercised  by  any  religion  may  be  but  a  type  and 
foretaste."  Mr.  Mill  may  have  thrown  all  the  more 
strength  into  this  statement  of  opinion,  that  he  was  ad- 
vocating a  mode  of  thought  which  he  knew  to  be  unpop- 
ular. For  certainly  it  is  one  of  his  characteristics,  that 
whether  from  the  desire  to  help  the  weaker  party,  or 
from  the  love  of  paradox,  he  loves  to  cut  prejudice 
against  the  gram.  Can  it  be  that  to  the  same  reason  is 
to  be  attributed  that  other  strange  statement  of  his,  that 
the  ideal  of  Christian  morality  is  negative  rather  than 
positive,  passive  rather  than  active,  abstinence  from  evil 
rather  than  energetic  pursuit  of  good  ?  If  this  is  not  to 
be  put  down  to  the  love  of  paradox,  it  is  an  instance  of 
ignorance  in  a  writer  of  high  repute,  to  which  it  would 
be  hard  to  find  a  parallel.  To  refute  it  there  is  no  need 
to  turn  to  the  New  Testament,  though,  if  one  did  so,  one 
should  have  to  quote  nearly  the  half  of  it ;  neither  need 
one  point  to  the  lives  of  the  most  eminent  Christians, 
and  the  extent  to  which  philanthropy  purely  Christian 
has  changed  the  world.  For  a  sufficient  refutation  I 
need  only  refer  to  a  modern  authoress,  who  plainly 
enough  shows  that  she  is  as  free  as  Mr.  Mill  is  from  any 
weakness  for  orthodoxy.  In  her  essay  on  Christian 
Ethics,  Miss  Cobbe  sets  forth  with  great  force  how 
Christ  changed  the  negative  law  of  the  Jews  into  a  posi- 
tive, and  thereby  transformed  the  whole  spirit  of  moral- 
ity, giving  to  men  the  being  good,  and  doing  good  for 
their  ami.  And  then  she  contrasts  with  this  what  she 
thinks  the  unmanly  ethics  of  the  modern  churches,  — 
the  mere  refraining  from  evil  and  leading  harmless  lives. 
But  to  return  to  Mr.  Mill's  assertion,  that  "  the  service 
of  humanity  "  may  probably  be  found  to  be  a  motive 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  331 

force  as  powerful,  or  even  more  powerful,  than  any 
hitherto  known.  Is  it  not  a  fact  of  history  that  it  was 
Christ,  who  by  his  character,  his  teaching,  his  whole  rev- 
elation, for  the  first  tune  so  enlarged  men's  narrow 
hearts  as  to  make  some  of  them  at  least  conceive  an  uni- 
versal love  for  their  kind  ?  How  He  did  this  we  have 
partly  seen  already,  and  cannot  dwell  more  on  it  now. 
Is  it  not  also  a  fact  of  history,  that  since  his  sojourn  on 
earth  a  new  virtue,  philanthropy,  has  come  into  being, 
and  that  of  the  great  benefactors  of  mankind  by  far  the 
largest  number,  and  those  the  noblest  and  most  self- 
denying,  have  been  men  who  have  confessed  that  they 
drew  their  inspirations  to  well-doing  directly  from  Hun  ? 
Have  these  not  declared  that  the  power  which  enabled 
them  to  overcome  natural  shrinking.,  and  to  seek  out 
their  fallen  fellow-creatures,  even  under  the  most  un- 
lovely and  revolting  circumstances,  was  the  simple  faith 
that  God  and  Christ  have  had  pity  on  themselves,  and 
on  all  men,  even  the  most  degraded  ?  This  worth  of 
human  nature,  the  most  degraded,  in  the  eyes  of  Christ, 
has  for  his  true  followers  invested  it,  even  when  most 
marred,  with  a  new  sacredness.  In  saying  this  it  is  no 
mere  feeling  or  fancy  I  speak  of,  but  one  of  the  soberest, 
best  attested  facts.  If  for  eighteen  centuries  this  has 
been  proved  to  be  the  strongest  motive  power  in  the 
breasts  of  great  philanthropists,  will  men's  devotion  to 
the  good  of  their  kind  become  wider  or  more  intense  if 
you  remove  those  beliefs  which  have  hitherto  fed  it  ? 
Permanent  devotion  to  any  object  is  exactly  in  proper- 
tion  to  the  belief  in  the  worth  of  that  object.  Will 
men's  sense  of  the  worth  of  the  race  be  greater  when 
you  have  removed  from  their  minds  all  thought  of  an 
eternal  destiny,  and  convinced  them  that  their  yearnings 
towards  God  are  a  delusion  ?  Would  human  life  seem 
more  lovely  or  more  sublime,  if  you  could  take  Christ 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

out  of  the  heart  of  the  race,  and  obliterate  all  sense  of 
the  relation  hi  which  we  stand  to  God  ?  "Would  the 
music  of  humanity  sound  more  grand  and  deep  if  you 
could  silence  these,  its  tenderest,  profoundest  tones? 
Nothing  that  we  know  of  the  past  or  of  the  nature  of 
things  makes  it  in  the  least  probable  that  by  withdraw- 
ing what  has  hitherto  proved  the  chief  creative  power  of 
philanthropy,  you  will  increase  its  volume.  And  if  we 
are  to  wait  till  trial  can  be  made  of  the  new  panacea, 
the  suspense  will  be  long,  and  the  result  disastrous  to  the 
best  interests  of  mankind.  It  will,  I  suspect,  require 
something  more  than  the  mere  assertion  of  any  philoso- 
pher to  make  sober-minded  men  hazard  the  experiment. 
Not  to  Christian  morality,  without  the  faith  which 
underlies  it,  still  less  to  the  Comtean  "  service  of 
humanity,"  can  we  look  with  hope  for  the  moving  force 
which  shall  make  man  fulfill  his  moral  end.  There  is 
still  another  agency,  which  is  so  ably  recommended  that 
it  must  not  be  passed  without  a  word.  There  are  some 
at  this  day  who  look  to  Culture,  taken  in  its  largest 
sense,  as  the  remedy  for  all  our  ills,  the  solvent  to 
break  the  horny  crust  that  hardens  round  men's  hearts, 
the  leavening  power  which  shall  transform  all  that  is 
coarse,  and  low,  and  selfish  into  purity  and  light.  Cul- 
ture, in  this  large  sense,  is  made  to  include  not  only 
the  usual  intellectual  and  aesthetic  elements,  but  also 
moral,  and  even  religious  ones.  The  aim,  it  is  said, 
which  the  widest  culture  sets  before  itself,  is  to  train 
man  not  only  to  an  aesthetic  but  to  a  spiritual  perfec- 
tion. And  since  man  has  religious  needs,  true  culture 
will  take  account  of  these  and  set  itself  to  supply  them. 
Thus  religion  becomes  a  large  ingredient  in  culture,  — 
a  means,  perhaps  the  highest  means,  toward  perfection, 
yet  still  a  means.  For  culture,  in  its  ideal  of  "  a 
harmonious  expansion  of  all  the  human  powers,"  goes 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  333 

beyond  religion  and  subordinates  religion  to  itself.  So 
conceived,  culture,  it  is  said,  "  adding  to  itself  the  re- 
ligious idea  of  a  devout  energy,  is  destined  to  transform 
and  govern  "  religion.  According  to  this  view,  culture 
is  the  end,  religion  but  the  means. 

There  are,  however,  things  which,  because  they  are 
ultimate  ends  in  themselves,  refuse  to  be  employed  as 
means,  and  if  attempted  to  be  so  employed,  lose  their 
essential  character.  Religion  is  one,  and  the  foremost 
of  these  things.  Obedience,  conformity  of  the  finite 
and  the  imperfect  will  of  man  to  the  infinite  and  perfect 
will  of  God,  this,  which  is  the  essence  of  religion,  is  an 
end  in  itself,  the  highest  end  which  we  can  conceive. 
It  cannot  be  sought  as  a  means  to  an  ulterior  end  with- 
out being  at  once  destroyed.  This  is  an  end,  or  rather 
the  end  in  itself,  which  culture  and  all  other  ends  by 
right  subserve.  And  here  in  culture,  as  we  saw  in 
pleasure,  the  great  ethic  law  will  be  found  to  hold,  that 
the  abandoning  of  it  as  an  end,  in  obedience  to  a  higher, 
more  supreme  aim,  is  the  very  condition  of  securing  it. 
Stretch  the  idea  of  culture  and  of  the  perfection  it  aims 
at  wide  as  you  will,  you  cannot,  while  you  make  it  your 
last  end,  rise  clear  of  the  original  self-reference  that 
lies  at  its  root ;  this  you  cannot  get  rid  of,  unless  you 
go  out  of  culture,  and  beyond  it,  abandoning  it  as  the 
end,  and  sinking  it  into  what  it  really  is,  a  means 
towards  the  perfection  of  human  nature.  No  one  ever 
really  became  beautiful  by  aiming  at  beauty.  Beauty 
comes,  we  scarce  know  how,  as  an  emanation  from 
sources  deeper  than  itself.  If  culture,  or  rather  the 
ends  of  culture,  are  to  be  healthy  and  natural  growths, 
they  must  come  unconsciously,  as  results  of  conformity 
to  the  will  of  God,  sought  not  for  any  end  but  itself. 
On  the  other  hand,  culture,  making  its  own  idea  of  per- 
fection the  end  and  religion  the  means,  would  degener- 


334  THE  MORAL   MOTIVE  POWER. 

ate   into    an    unhealthy  artificial    plant,  open    to    the 
charges  urged  against  it  by  its  enemies. 

It  cannot  indeed  be  denied  that  these  two,  culture  or 
the  love  of  beauty,  religion  or  the  love  of  godliness,  ap- 
pear in  individuals,  in  races,  in  ages,  as  rival,  often  as 
conflicting  forces.  In  themselves,  and  essentially,  it 
cannot  be  that  they  are  opposed;  but  when  either 
enters  the  human  spirit,  so  absorbing  is  the  attraction, 
that  it  for  the  most  part  casts  out  the  other.  The 
votary  of  beauty  shrinks  from  religion  as  something 
stern  and  ungenial,  the  devout  Puritan  discards  beauty 
as  a  seductive  snare,  and  even  those  who  have  hearts 
susceptible  of  both,  find  that  a  practical  crisis  will  come 
when  a  choice  must  be  made  whether  of  the  two  they 
will  serve.  The  consciousness  of  this  disunion  has  of 
late  years  been  felt  deeply  in  the  most  gifted  minds. 
Painful  often  has  the  conflict  been,  when  the  natural 
love  of  beauty  was  leading  one  way,  loyalty  to  that 
which  is  higher  than  beauty  called  another,  and  no 
practical  escape  was  possible,  except  by  the  sacrifice  of 
feelings  which  in  themselves  were  innocent  and  beau- 
tiful. This  discord  has  doubtless  been  intensified  by 
the  fact  that  ever  since  the  Reformation  men  have 
taken  the  one  or  the  other  definite  road,  not  dreaming 
that  the  two  might  be  reconciled,  or  that  it  was  desir- 
able to  reconcile  them.  Only  in  recent  times  have  we 
begun  to  feel  strongly  that  both  are  good,  that  each 
without  the  other  is  so  far  imperfect,  and  that  some 
reconciliation,  if  it  were  possible,  is  a  thing  to  be  de- 
sired. Violent  has  been  the  reaction  which  this  new 
consciousness  has  created.  In  the  recoil  from  what 
they  call  Puritanism,  or  religion  without  culture,  many 
have  given  themselves  up  to  culture  without  religion, 
or,  at  best,  with  a  very  diluted  form  of  religion.  They 
have  set  up  for  worship  the  golden  calf  of  art,  and 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  335 

danced  round  it  to  the  pipe  which  the  great  Goethe 
played.  They  have  promulgated  what  they  call  the 
gospel  of  art,  —  as  Carlyle  says,  the  windiest  gospel 
ever  yet  preached,  which  never  has  saved  and  never 
will  save  any  man  from  moral  corruption.  Not  that 
way  lies  the  true  solution.  It  is  but  a  vain  attempt  to 
build  up  culture  on  the  denial  of  man's  first  and  deepest 
need.  That  need  is  still  what  it  ever  has  been,  that 
his  will  be  brought  into  contact  with  a  Will  higher, 
purer,  stronger,  than  itself,  on  which  it  can  hang,  from 
which,  as  an  ever-present  "  Personal  Inspirer,"  it  can 
draw  all  it  needs  of  purifying  strength.  Set  right  by 
allegiance  to  the  All-righteous  Will,  in  dependence  not 
in  self-centered  perfection,  —  in  service  not  in  culture,  — 
in  a  higher  self  than  itself,  —  the  soul  finds  its  true 
well-being.  This  centre  once  found — Christ  as  the 
life  of  individual  hearts,  as  the  cementing  bond  of  all 
humanity  —  culture  may  be  added  without  stint  In 
subservience  to  Him,  used  as  an  instrumentality  in 
building  up  his  kingdom,  culture  has  a  beneficent  work 
to  do.  Apart  from  this,  setting  up  for  itself,  it  can 
never  clear  itself  of  the  original  taint  of  self-reference. 
But  if  it  will  understand  its  true  calling  to  be  the  means 
not  the  end,  the  servant  not  the  master,  large  service 
lies  ready  before  it.  To  adjust  the  claims,  and  deter- 
mine the  place  of  culture  in  reference  to  religion,  is,  I 
know,  a  hard  problem ;  and  it  were  a  useful  work,  for 
those  who  can,  to  help  to  adjust  it.  But  the  first  con- 
dition of  success  is,  that  we  recognize  the  true  centre, 
and  look  for  harmony  by  seeing  the  other  elements 
held  in  their  places  by  the  force  of  the  central  attrac- 
tion. 

I  have  attempted  to  show  how  a  new  and  more  vital 
force  is  imported  into  morality,  when  we  regard  the  ab- 
stract moral  law  of  ethical  science  as  absorbed  into  the 


336  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

All-righteous,  All-loving  Personal  Will  which  Christian- 
ity reveals.  In  doing  so  I  have  touched,  and  that  very 
imperfectly,  I  am  well  aware,  but  one  side  of  a  many- 
sided,  indeed  of  an  exhaustless  problem.  When  man's 
natural  moral  sentiments  are -confronted  with  the  Chris- 
tian revelation,  many  other  questions  arise,  some  of 
them  more  fundamental,  though  none  perhaps  more 
practical,  than  the  one  here  discussed.  Of  these  funda- 
mental inquiries  one  of  the  foremost  is,  how  far  man 
naturally  possesses  within  himself  certain  moral  senti- 
ments which  serve  as  criteria  by  which  the  truth  of  a 
revelation  may  be  judged.  On  this  grave  question  I 
cannot  even  enter  at  the  close  of  this  discussion.  Only 
I  would  remark,  that  the  moral  nature  in  man  must  be 
that  to  which  any  objective  religion,  which  claims  to  be 
universal,  must  mainly  make  its  appeal.  Else  man  has 
no  internal  standard  at  all  by  which  to  try  any  religion 
which  claims  to  be  received ;  and  on  purely  external 
grounds,  it  is  conceivable  that  a  religion,  teaching  im- 
morality, might  have  much  to  say  for  itself.  Christian- 
ity, at  first,  though  it  came  with  external  signs  and 
wonders,  yet  rested  its  claim  mainly  on  its  adaptation  to 
man's  moral  nature,  and  must  do  so  more  and  more,  as 
the  moral  perceptions  it  has  itself  quickened  become 
deeper  and  purer.  It  must  be  so,  if  revelation  be  in- 
deed the  appeal  which  God  makes  through  facts  of  his- 
tory to  the  witness  of  Himself  which  He  has  left  in  con- 
science. In  this  view,  Christian  faith  receiving  revealed 
truth  is  the  leaping  up  of  like  to  like,  the  exile  recog- 
nizing once  more  a  voice  from  his  home. 

The  appeal  to  a  power  of  judging  in  man  is  made  in 
many  different  forms  by  our  Lord  Himself :  "  Why 
even  of  yourselves  judge  ye  not  what  is  right  ?  "  St. 
Paul,  too,  says  that  he  strove  in  all  he  taught,  to  com- 
mand himself  to  every  man's  conscience.  And  the 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  337 

more  either  individuals  or  the  race  advance  in  spiritual 
intelligence,  the  more  readily  will  they  respond  to  this 
appeal  in  preference  to  all  others.  Morality  and  Chris- 
tianity have  for  eighteen  centuries  acted  and  reacted  on 
each  other,  the  outward  truth  quickening  the  inward 
perceptions,  and  these,  when  quickened,  purifying  men's 
apprehensions  of  the  outward  truth.  And  these  two 
have  become  so  interwoven  that  it  is  now  impossible  to 
separate  them,  and  to  say,  this  was  drawn  from  the  one 
source,  and  that  from  the  other.  Christianity,  from  the 
first,  appealing  partly  to  men's  natural  desire  to  escape 
from  the  dreaded  consequences  of  sin,  partly  to  the 
moral  longings  for  righteousness,  never  wholly  dead  in 
the  race,  has,  through  this  mingling  of  prudential  and 
moral  motives,  elevated  the  best  of  mankind,  and  made 
their  moral  perceptions  what  they  now  are.  And  these 
moral  perceptions,  thus  refined,  react  on  the  objective 
religion,  and  require  ever  more  stringently  that  the 
truths  presented  by  it  shall  be  not  moral  only,  that  is, 
conformable  to  all  that  is  best  in  man,  but  that  they 
shall  complement  this,  strengthen,  elevate  it.  They  re- 
quire not  only  that  nothing  which  is  un-moral  shall  be 
taught  as  true  of  God  and  his  dealings  with  man,  but 
that  all  which  is  taught  concerning  Him  shall  be  in  the 
highest  conceivable  degree  righteous,  shall  be  such  as  to 
lay  hold  of  and  to  cherish  whatever  susceptibility  of 
righteousness  there  is  in  man,  and  carry  it  on  to  perfec- 
tion. This  is  so  obvious  that  it  seems  a  truism.  It  is 
so  readily  assented  to  that  no  one  would  think  of  deny- 
ing it  when  stated  in  this  general  way.  Yet  it  is  pain- 
ful to  think  how  much  and  how  persistently  it  has  often 
been  lost  sight  of  in  popular  religious  teaching,  and 
with  how  disastrous  consequences.  I  am  quite  aware 
of  the  difficulties  which  this  principle  has  to  meet  when 
turned  to  certain  points  in  the  elder  and  more  rudimen- 
22 


888  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

tary  forms  of  revelation.  To  solve  these  fairly  would 
require  a  combination  of  moral  and  historical  insight, 
with  various  kinds  of  knowledge,  such  as  few  possess. 
But  when  this  principle  is  applied  to  the  latest  and 
completed  revelation,  Christianity  can  meet  its  require- 
ments in  their  most  exacting  form.  If  precept  or  truth 
can  elevate,  what  height  of  morality  can  be  conceived 
which  shall  go  beyond  such  precepts  as  this :  "  Be  ye 
perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect "  ?  or 
such  announcements  as  these  :  "  God  is  love  ; "  "  God 
is  light,  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all  "  ?  Indeed, 
it  is  only  when  the  inner  moral  eye  has  been  clarified 
that  the  meaning  of  these  statements  comes  out  at  all, 
and  evermore  as  the  moral  nature  rises  these  great 
truths  rise  above  it  infinitely.  And  if  it  be  said  that 
after  all  these  are  but  general  announcements,  void  of 
content,  and  we  still  need  to  know  what  perfection, 
light,  love,  are,  then  there  remains  our  Lord's  own  life, 
with  his  teaching,  actions,  character,  to  fill  these  general 
words  with  living  substance. 

It  were  well  that  those  who  have  to  teach  religion 
should  consider  these  matters  more  closely,  —  make  a 
study  more  searching  than  is  commonly  made  of  what 
there  is  in  moral  man,  —  what  this  longs  for,  with  what 
alone  it  will  be  satisfied.  The  most  thoughtful  teach- 
ers know  this,  know  that  for  want  of  thus  meeting  the 
moral  needs  of  men,  —  thus  grappling  with  the  higher 
moral  side  of  questions,  —  there  is  danger  lest  the  pur- 
est morality  of  modern  time  part  company  with  the 
received  religion.  Men  who  are  to  teach  cannot  see 
too  clearly  or  seize  too  firmly  the  distinction  between 
that  which  is  really  moral  and  that  which  is  merely 
prudential  in  man ;  and  though  they  may  not  alto- 
gether pass  by  motives  drawn  from  the  latter  region, 
on  the  former  mainly  they  must  throw  themselves,  to  it 


THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER.  339 

must  be  their  chief  appeal.  They  must  cease  to  be 
content  if  they  can  raise  men  merely  to  the  prudential 
level  of  a  desire  for  safety,  they  must  feel  that  their 
work  is  hardly  begun  till  those  they  teach  have  come 
to  desire  righteousness  for  the  love  of  itself.  They 
must  refuse  to  meet  moral  yearnings  by  un-moral  doc- 
trines or  expedients,  —  for  bread  giving  men  a  stone. 
They  must  keep  steadily  before  them  that  nothing  can 
permanently  satisfy  the  moral  being  in  man,  but  some- 
thing not  less,  but  more  moral,  more  spiritual  than  it- 
self. They  must  feel  themselves,  and  make  others  feel, 
that  in  the  Divine  economy,  though  there  is  much 
which  is  now  dark  and  mysterious,  there  is  nothing 
which  is  not  supremely  moral,  and  which  will  not  at 
last  be  clearly  seen  to  be  so.  In  ceasing  to  use  so  ex- 
clusively the  weapons  of  merely  earthly,  and  wielding 
more  confidently  those  of  pure  spiritual  temper,  they 
need  not  fear  that  the  old  armory  of  Christianity  will 
fail  them.  In  the  old  words,  the  old  truths,  the  old 
facts,  more  vitally  and  spiritually  apprehended,  because 
brought  closer  to  the  moral  heart  of  man,  they  will 
find  all  they  need.  This  close  contact  between  Chris- 
tian truths  and  the  highest  moral  thought  of  the  time, 
while  it  vitalizes  and  makes  real  the  former,  will  react 
no  less  powerfully  on  the  latter.  There  is  no  moral 
truth  which  is  not  deepened  when  seen  in  the  light  of 
God.  That  which,  regarded  from  the  side  of  man,  is 
felt  merely  as  a  yielding  to  his  own  sensual  nature, 
when  seen  from  the  side  of  God  becomes  disobedience 
to  a  loving  and  righteous  will  to  which  he  owes  every- 
thing, and  is  deepened  into  a  sense  of  sin.  Character, 
which  when  regarded  from  a  merely  moral  point  of 
view  almost  inevitably  becomes  a  building  up  from  our 
own  internal  resources,  takes  altogether  another  aspect 
when  it  is  seen  that  true  character  is  in  the  last  resort 


340  THE  MORAL  MOTIVE  POWER. 

determined  by  the  attitude  in  which  the  spirit  stands  to 
God.  Then  it  comes  to  be  felt  that  the  Tightness  men 
search  for  cannot  be  self-evolved  from  within,  that  they 
must  cease  from  attempting  this,  must  go  beyond  self, 
must  fall  back  on  a  simple  receptivity,  receiving  the 
Tightness  and  the  right-making  power,  which  they  have 
not  in  themselves,  from  out  of  the  great  reservoir  of 
righteousness  which  is  in  God.  Only  on  thus  falling 
back  on  God,  and  feeling  himself  to  be,  as  of  every- 
thing else,  so  of  righteousness,  a  recipient,  is  a  man 
truly  Tightened.  Thus  the  last  moral  experience  and 
the  first  upward  look  of  religion  agree  in  one,  "A 
man  can  receive  nothing  except  it  be  given  him  from 
above." 


